


Winterbreak (Push and Pull)

by owlpostagain



Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - No Pennywise (IT), M/M, Miscommunication
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-09
Updated: 2018-12-08
Packaged: 2019-09-14 13:52:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 47,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16914081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/owlpostagain/pseuds/owlpostagain
Summary: Oh baby, I think we both know this is a love we won't get right. Still, if you said that you wanted, I know I'll always have one more try.(Five times Richie and Eddie get it wrong and the one time they just might get it right.)





	1. Summer Break, After Freshman Year

**Author's Note:**

> Title, summary, and inspiration comes from the MUNA song "Winterbreak" (highly recommended, excellent song). There are many things I should probably apologize for with this story, but the music recommendation is not one of them.

**Chapter 1 – Summer Break, After Freshman Year**  
_We All Float Down Here – Four Year Strong  
  
  
_

* * *

 

Richie pulled into his parents’ driveway just after midnight and cut the engine with a sigh. He had three long months ahead of him – three long months living at home again after being on his own, of trying to remember how to fit back into a life that he wasn’t sure he still fit into. His freshman year of college had been… _life-changing_. And now he was back in Derry. Again.  
  
Richie grabbed his backpack off the passenger’s seat and kicked his door open, unfolding out of the car he’d been in for the better part of ten hours. He had put off leaving until the very last minute – his last final had been four days ago, he’d been free to leave since Tuesday afternoon. But the dorms had been open and accessible until noon on Saturday, so Richie hadn’t packed up his car until 11:45 that morning, had lingered at the radio studio – his home away from home – for another hour after that.  
  
But Derry was unavoidable, no matter what Richie did, so he slammed the car door shut and clicked the lock on his key fob twice. He’d empty the car in the morning, there was no _way_ he was unpacking tonight – not alone, in the dark, in that weird in-between state of being _fucking wired_ and bone-deep tired.  
  
He blamed the bone-deep tired part for his inattentiveness – he _wasn’t_ alone. There was a person sitting on the top step of the front porch, curled loosely into himself with his knees pulled up to his chest and his face in the shadows, but Richie would recognize that silhouette – those curls – anywhere.  
  
“Stan my _man_ ,” Richie called delightedly, slowing to a stop at the foot of the stairs and throwing his backpack down at his feet. “Get the fuck over here.”  
  
Stan, ever so predictably, uncurled languidly and traipsed down the steps at a leisurely pace. Like he hadn’t been sitting on Richie’s damn porch like a _puppy_ , waiting for his best friend to get home at dumb-o’clock in the morning, like he didn’t laugh and hug back just as fiercely when Richie yanked him in tight.  
  
“Goddamn, dude, it’s good to see you,” Richie said through a grin, pulling back just enough to grab at Stan’s face. “Lemme look at you – shit, looks like Georgia’s doing you good.”  
  
“Atlanta’s great,” Stan agreed. He held Richie out at arm’s length, looked him over from the top of his messy curls to the soles of his battered red Chucks. “You should come visit sometime, maybe you’d look less like a scarecrow if you ate a good southern meal.”  
  
“Man, I’m too broke to buy _food_ , what makes you think I can afford a ticket to Atlanta?” Richie swatted away the hand now poking into his ribs. “If I’d known you were this eager to see me though, maybe I would’ve scraped up enough loose change. Maybe that’s what it takes to finally bang that sweet Jewish ass of yours.”  
  
“I didn’t miss you at all,” Stan said, utterly deadpan.  
  
“Sure you did,” Richie took a step back and scooped his bag up off the ground before bounding up the steps, beckoning Stan along behind him. “C’mon, I’ve had to take a piss for like 200 miles. How’d you even know when I was going to be home?”  
  
“Your mom,” Stan told him, following Richie through the unlocked front door and into the dark foyer, though not into the shoe rack that Richie almost immediately tripped over. “Turn a light on, dumbass. Your mom told my mom, who made the horrible mistake of mentioning it in front of Bill.”  
  
“Ah, your mom finally left the Rabbi for a real man?” Richie, defiant as ever, pointedly bypassed two different light switches as he led them both toward the kitchen.  
  
Stan, long-accustomed to Richie, ignored him. He flipped the kitchen light on and settled onto a stool by the counter as Richie slammed his way into the small bathroom off the hall, rifled through Richie’s backpack while Richie peed with the door half open. There was nothing interesting in his backpack, and Richie wouldn’t care even if there was, so Richie left him to it.  
  
“Bill wanted to throw you a surprise party, have us all be here when you got back,” Stan continued, only after Richie had washed his hands and moved on to pilfering the refrigerator. “You’re the last one in, you know. Ben got home two days ago, everyone else has been here for almost a week already.”  
  
“Finals ran late,” Richie lied, busying himself with spreading three different packages of cold cuts, lettuce, a tomato, and an onion out in front of him. “You want mayo on yours or not?”  
  
“Obviously,” Stan rolled his eyes. “I told Bill it was a colossally bad idea for like, at least ten different reasons. So instead of a surprise party tonight, you can look forward to being woken up at an ungodly hour tomorrow morning by a handful of overly enthusiastic assholes demanding your immediate attention. I’d recommend locking your bedroom door.”  
  
“And deny my people the pleasure of my company?” Richie scoffed. He needed something else – pepper, maybe?  
  
“I’d hardly call it a _pleasure_ ,” Stan shot back. “More like an unavoidable nuisance.”  
  
“Aw shucks sugar, you sure know how to make a girl blush,” Richie cooed, sweet and coy and dripping with southern belle charm. He flicked a limp piece of lettuce at Stan, who watched it fall to the floor two feet short of its target.  
  
“Is it possible you’ve actually gotten _worse_ at that?” Stan sighed, but he looked fond and charmed in spite of himself. Anyway, Richie knew the truth – his Voices were _absolutely_ getting better. Better enough that he was known around campus for them, that people asked for them on demand, that Richie’s catalogue had grown to include a solid ten different personalities he could pull out on cue. He used them less frequently, too – bigger impact that way, he was totally learning.  
  
“It’s a right hit with the lads though, mate,” Richie slipped British this time, waved a knife absently at the cabinet closest to Stan, who stood up and pulled two plates out without hesitation. “Ladies too. Your boy’s been positively _drowning_ in good dick this year.”  
  
“Eddie has a boyfriend.”  
  
Richie smoothed a layer of mayo onto a slice of bread with precise strokes, careful to spread it evenly to the very corners of the crust. Most of the people in his life would have laughed at the idea of frenetic, wild Richie being methodical, but he knew himself. His focus was just…selective. He _liked_ cooking, liked the well-practiced pace of it. Besides, he was committed to making this the best “welcome home from a semester of ramen and shitty dining hall meals” sandwich ever to be eaten on this green earth, goddammit.  
  
“Richie?”  
  
It was the care with which Stan said his name that would – much, much later, when he was finally alone – be Richie’s undoing. He and Stan weren’t _gentle_ with each other, they didn’t take care when dropping unholy truths. But Stanley and his achingly gentle pronunciation of Richie’s name, deliberate and soft, was unavoidable.  
  
Richie neatly sliced Stan’s sandwich in half before picking up both plates and stepping into the inevitable. Stan watched him carefully, Richie tried not to bristle under it as he slid one plate across the counter to where Stan sat.  
  
“Good for him,” he said finally. Good for Eddie. A boyfriend. Good for fucking him.  
  
Somewhere, deep in the pit of his cold, guarded heart, Richie genuinely meant that.  
  
“He’s been pretty gushy about it,” Stan continued, without actually acknowledging Richie’s response. He mostly spoke to the sandwich in front of him. “Hasn’t shut the fuck up, honestly. I’m pretty sure even Ben’s like two minutes away from putting a full out embargo on the b–word, and we all know what a sucker for love he is.”  
  
_Love_. Richie mouthed the word into the meat of his sandwich, barely one bite in and suddenly, emphatically not hungry.  
  
In another life – or another year – Richie would have known first-hand whether or not Eddie was in Love. Eddie Kaspbrak, the ying to Richie’s yang, the Laurie to Richie’s Fry. The only friend in the world Richie loved as much as Stan.  
  
But in this life Richie and Eddie hadn’t spoken since January. Four months, he supposed, might be enough to fall in love with someone. He wouldn’t know – he’d certainly never been asked to chart the progression of his Great Love Affair.  
  
Stan winced like he could see Richie’s face, even though he hadn’t looked up from his sandwich. _Laser focus like that he was going to wind up toasting the whole thing with his eyes alone_ , Richie thought, only a little hysterically.  
  
“Not that it’s love. Puppy love, maybe, not the real thing. I don’t know. I just…”  
  
Stan trailed off, and oh crap, suddenly grew a damn backbone. He lifted his head and made eye contact with Richie, staring him down resolutely until Richie huffed out a breath and put his food down, giving Stan his rarely undivided attention.  
  
“We both know Eddie can be a little…cavalier sometimes. Or maybe just oblivious, I don’t know. But I’m pretty sure he’s not going to tell you himself, and I didn’t think you’d want to find out for the first time when Eddie blurts out some stupid “my boyfriend and I were in the dining hall…” story in front of all of us.”  
  
Richie squirmed under the scrutiny. Or maybe it was the guilt. Maybe it was the suffocating weight of knowing that here Stan was trying to _protect Richie_ , trying to spare his feelings, and he had no idea that Richie had already felt every bit of it. That Eddie’s delivery of the news would not have been cavalier or oblivious, but calculated and intentionally cutting.  
  
Richie almost felt bad for denying Eddie the pleasure. Almost.  
  
Stan was still watching, studying Richie for a reaction, a sign, anything that might tell them both how to move forward with this painful drag of a conversation. Richie didn’t have anything to give him. He yanked his glasses off his face by one arm, precisely way his optometrist always told him not to, and dropped them down on the counter. These days he wore his contacts pretty much exclusively, only made an exception for the long drive he’d covered today, but he was grateful for the excuse. He could still feel Stan’s eyes on him, but at least Richie couldn’t actually make out the pity on his face anymore.  
  
“It’s fine. Eddie’s got a boyfriend. That’s great. As long as Eddie’s happy, good for him. I bet he’s a good guy, Eddie wouldn’t suffer an asshole.”  
  
Stan looked up like he heard the unspoken words tacked onto the end of that sentence, even though Richie had been so careful not to even _think them_. In his next life Richie planned to pick a less-observant best friend.  
  
Shrewd and observant as he might be, at least Stan knew when to keep his mouth shut. He chewed the second half of his sandwich in silence, left Richie alone to chew his thoughts instead.  
  
Eddie had a boyfriend. Well. Good for fucking Eddie.  
  
“Well gee, Mistah Uris, it sure has been swell havin’ you,” Richie said finally, earnest and young but somehow lacking the necessary spark to really pull it off. Stan barely even rolled his eyes, just raised an eyebrow expectantly at Richie. Richie, glasses still abandoned on the counter between them, pretended he couldn’t see Stan at all.  
  
“Side effect of talking to myself in the car all day,” Richie shrugged defensively. He picked up his mostly untouched sandwich, poked morosely at what minutes before had promised to be a worthy midnight snack. Well. He could probably wrap it up and stick it in the fridge – knowing his asshole friends he’d need a grab and go breakfast anyway.  
  
God, he’d missed them.  
  
God, he’d give anything to not have to see them tomorrow.  
  
God, he’d drive his car straight into the Atlantic fucking Ocean to avoid them.  
  
Stan, who even at his most understanding never managed to suffer Richie spacing out, stood up. Richie startled hard enough that he dropped his sandwich back down onto his own plate, jumped and looked around guiltily. Stan stood with his arms across his chest and a stern expression that didn’t quite reach his eyes, the uncharacteristic gentleness still lingering in the soft look he leveled at Richie.  
  
“Do you want to talk about it?” Stan demanded.  
  
“Dear God no, Stanley,” Richie insisted.  
  
“Do you want me to leave so you can not talk about it all alone with just yourself and no witnesses?” Stan’s expression was sly, tone light and teasing enough that Richie barked out a laugh, but the offer was genuine. They both knew that Richie wasn’t going to go jerk off to the idea of Eddie and some mysterious, nameless, faceless guy, but they sure as shit were never going to acknowledge Richie’s need to go cry about it.  
  
“Also no, jackass,” Richie sighed. “Did you want to leave?”  
  
“Told my mom I was spending the night like, four hours ago. Be weird if I came home _now_ ,” Stan shrugged. Like it meant nothing. Like he hadn’t gone out of his way to be there for Richie, _literally_ be there for Richie.  
  
When Richie drove his car into the Atlantic to avoid having to see his friends, he decided, he would take Stan with him. Stanley Uris takes a bath – deep in the heart of the deep blue sea, best friend at his side.  
  
Richie was, he realized too late, saying all of this out loud. But Stan just smirked broadly at him, stepping forward to grab the plate still holding Richie’s uneaten sandwich before making his way back to the fridge. He took the time to cover the sandwich with saran wrap, Richie noticed fondly, like an actual, functional human being and not like the tragic slump of a college freshman Richie had turned into.  
  
“You’ve been a tragic slump of a human being since you were four,” Stan said drily, slamming the refrigerator door shut behind him. “I can’t imagine why you thought college would change that.”  
  
“You wouldn’t want me to change, Stanny,” Richie cooed, grabbing his backpack up off the floor before slinging one arm around Stan’s shoulder. “How else would you get your kicks? Who else would you give the chucks? You need me, sugar.”  
  
Stan never _just_ rolled his eyes – he lifted his whole face heavenward, rolling his eyes high toward the ceiling before twisting back down to look at Richie. Richie, arm still around Stan’s neck as he led them both up the stairs, felt it more than he saw it.  
  
“You have anything to unpack?”  
  
Richie hiked his backpack up a little higher on his shoulder with his free hand. His mom had put clean sheets on his bed, his backpack had pajamas and a toothbrush, a change of clothes and his contacts. What more did a person need, really? A quick trip to the bathroom was all that stood between Richie and a nice long night of sleep in his childhood bed. Richie hadn’t been home since January, hadn’t slept with those familiar pillows, his well–worn comforter, in months.  
  
He hadn’t been alone that last night either. But that was a thought that Richie couldn’t afford right now.  
  
Richie and Stan might have been two nineteen–year–old boys with a combined twelve and half feet and three-hundred-plus pounds between them, but they had been sharing Richie’s shitty little twin-size mattress since the dawn of time. There was something comforting in the familiarity of the routine, of knowing how to position himself to avoid Stan’s sharp elbows, where to hook his ankles on the footboard so his feet dangled just right off the edge. College had been good to him; Richie _loved_ his new friends, his new life, but there was more history in that little bed than most people got in a whole lifetime of relationships.  
  
“What time do you think Bev will be here in the morning?” Stan mumbled the question directly into the pillow he was pressed face-first into – the words had gone soft and a little surreal by the time they reached Richie’s ears. Floated over to him, in that late-night haze that made Richie realize he’d been dozing – not outright sleeping, just that more time had passed than he’d realized.  
  
“Not before ten, if she knows what’s good for her,” Richie grumbled back.  
  
Bev, he knew, would be banging down his bedroom door before eight. If it was anybody else he’d lock the door, leave the phone off the hook, do not disturb before noon, but it was Bev. Beverly Marsh, light of his life, kindred soul, twin of his heart. Beverly Marsh, traitorous bitch that didn’t come home for winter break, that Richie hasn’t seen since _August_. Yeah, she’d be there before eight, and Richie would welcome her in with wide fucking open arms.  
  
“Think she’ll be alone?”  
  
“Ben’s definitely too smart to show up at my house before noon, and Bill’s not dragging his sorry ass out of bed that early either.” Richie shrugged one shoulder, despite knowing full-well that Stan couldn’t see him. Despite knowing full-well that Stan wasn’t asking about Ben, or Bill, or Mike. “Mike’s probably got work to do before he can come into town.”  
  
Stan hummed noncommittally, the closest he’d ever get to calling Richie’s bluff.  
  
_No, Stanley_ , Richie thought. Obviously Eddie was _not_ going to come here tomorrow morning. Eddie and his perfect new boyfriend and his perfect new life and his perfectly good reason to stay far the fuck away from Richie’s bedroom.  
  
But Richie only _thought_ it, because Stan didn’t know. Stan didn’t know that Richie _ran away_ , that Richie crawled back to school two days earlier than planned with a broken fucking heart hemorrhaging in his chest. That Richie could still feel the sucker-punch of Eddie’s rejection, of Eddie’s dismissal. That Richie had fled his own fucking bedroom, leaving his dignity tangled on the floor with their clothes, both of them hiding tears they’d never admit to again. That while Stan had written letters and Bev had made weekly phone calls and Bill had made the drive up from Poughkeepsie for one glorious, ridiculous weekend, Richie and Eddie hadn’t spoken one single word to each other in four months.  
  
“She’ll be alone,” he said quietly. Definitively. The real answer, though not the full answer. And Stan stayed silent, the kind of silence that said more than any words that could come out of his mouth. Because really, what else was there to say?  
  
Richie let that silence lull him into a dull, restless sleep.

 

 

 

Richie woke up slowly. That ideal kind of waking, when there’s no alarm, no rush, just a gradual lightening of consciousness until you blink blearily into the morning light and realize you’re awake. Richie woke up warm but not overheating, curled comfortably on his side with his back flat against the wall and a soft someone in front of him. He kept his eyes closed and his body relaxed and let himself be lulled by the dull, rolling murmur of quiet voices nearby.  
  
“How’d he take it?"  
  
“Like you’d expect Richie to take it.” And then a pause. “Actually, no. Not at all how you’d expect Richie to take it.”  
  
“Sarcasm and a Voice?”  
  
“Right – not that. He was…quiet. He didn’t really say much about it. Or at all, really. After.”  
  
There was a second head on Richie’s pillow – his face was nearly buried into the top of someone’s skull. Silky hair, soft and clean-smelling, a lingering hint of cigarette smoke…  
  
Richie tightened the arm he’d only just realized was around Beverly’s waist, pulling her in closer against him. The voices – Bev, apparently, and Stan – stopped immediately. Richie didn’t care. Let them talk about him. They were two of his best friends, if they wanted to go behind his back to talk about his emotional welfare or some shit then who was Richie to stop them?  
  
“Mmph,” he grumbled, pressing his face further into the top of Bev’s head and planting a kiss in her hair. “Hey beautiful.”  
  
Bev’s fingers, loosely curled around Richie’s wrist, squeezed tightly in response.  
  
“I was talking to Stan, but it’s good to see you too.”  
  
The grip on his wrist turned into a nasty pinch, sharp fingernails with an added twist at the end, and Richie grinned into Bev’s hair and hugged her a little tighter into him.  
  
“I didn’t miss you at all,” Beverly sighed, relaxing deeper into their cuddles. Stan, petulant at being left out even when he pretended not to want in, shifted until he could prop his head on the arm Richie had stretched out under the pillow.  
  
“You know, I’m pretty sure Stan said the exact same thing,” Richie mused. “Right before following me inside like a stray dog and hogging the bed all night.”  
  
“Stanley has been eagerly awaiting your arrival since like Monday,” Bev said conspiratorially, tilting her head up just enough that Richie knew she was grinning at Stan. “Every time someone asked when you were coming home he’d be the first to say _Saturday_ all long-suffering and mopey.”  
  
“He pines for me,” Richie simpered, soft and southern belle. “My sweet Stanny-boy, he suffers through the long cold months an’ he _pines_ for me, Miss Marsh. _Pines_. The poor dear.”  
  
Stan kicked a foot halfheartedly against Richie’s shin, Richie flicked him in the back of the head in response.  
  
“Mm, now it feels like being home again,” Bev sighed, and Richie could hear the satisfaction in her voice. “It’s too early for roughhousing, assholes.”  
  
It was too early for roughhousing. It was too early to do anything, really, that wasn’t cuddling in a too-small bed with three too-old teenagers that barely fit. So Richie threaded one hand through Stan’s hair and curled the other around Beverly’s ribs. Stan slumped forward until he and Bev were practically nose to forehead, Bev melted between Richie and Stan until there was no empty space, until they were balanced comfortably in the center of the mattress and lulled into a warm, sleepy doze.  
  
Richie never fell back asleep, exactly, but time passed in a lazy haze anyway. It was the first day in a long time that he didn’t have any obligations, there was nowhere pressing that he _needed_ to be, and Richie was going to bask in that for as long as he could.  
  
He didn’t know how much time passed before a gentle tapping on the bedroom door roused all three of them from their lazy stupor. He probably should’ve said hi to his mom, probably would’ve been a good son thing to do, but Richie had been so damn _content_ …  
  
But the smudgy blur of a figure in the slowly opening doorway wasn’t his mother.  
  
“Wow, do you two have like, a homing beacon on him? Was he here five whole minutes before you showed up?” Bill Denbrough’s voice asked.  
  
Richie grinned, lifted his arm from around Bev’s waist to hold one hand out to Bill, and was promptly greeted by Bill climbing unceremoniously on top of all three of them.  
  
“Oof, oh my god you’re heavy.”  
  
“That’s my _kidney_ , asshole.”  
  
“You’ve got two of those anyway.”  
  
“I don’t know whose hand is on my ass but he better _move it_.”  
  
“Richie!” Bill said delightedly, mouth way too close to Richie’s ear. “Welcome home man, we missed you.”  
  
“Hey,” Richie poked a finger into Bev’s back, the only part of her he could reach now that Bill was pinning down his arm. “Which one of them missed me more, Bill or Stan?”  
  
“Stan,” Bev and Bill said in unison, not missing a beat.  
  
“He’s been talking shit about you all week, he was clearly pining,” Bill added. If he lifted his head and twisted his neck Richie could just barely catch the shit-eating grin on Bill’s face, but it was the red flush on Stan’s cheeks that really made him burst out laughing.  
  
“Dude, I missed you too.” Richie was still laughing, but that didn’t quite erase the sincerity from his tone. He scrubbed his hand lightly through the back of Stan’s hair, and Stan grumbled but didn’t actually push Richie away. “Everyone knows you’re my favorite.”  
  
“Yeah, right, _Stan’s_ your favorite.” Bill snorted.  
  
Bev went tense, Richie felt it all the way down the length of his side where they were still pressed together. But Richie was fine, Richie was _made_ for moments like this, sticking his nose into a sudden turn for the awkward.  
  
“Well if you’re jealous, Billy, I’m holding auditions for a new favorite this afternoon.”  
  
Bill smiled, but there was something muted about it, like he realized he’d stepped in it even with Richie’s graceful redirect.  
  
“Breakfast first,” Bill announced, and _wow_ did that get everyone’s attention.  
  
“Breakfast?” Bev perked up, lifting her head up off Richie’s arm for the first time since she got there.  
  
“Mike’s meeting us at the diner in half an hour,” Bill nodded. “Eddie’s rounding up Ben, I had a weird feeling I’d find more than one of you here.”  
  
“There’s that jealousy again, Big Bill,” Richie teased. “Now get the fuck off me, some of us actually like to shower before showing their face in public.”  
  
“Thank God,” Bill quipped back, “you reek.”  
  
“Like your mom’s pussy,” Richie agreed.  
  
They all groaned – Bill the loudest, Stan aiming a weak kick in Richie’s general direction. Richie just beamed and shoved lightly at Bill. There was breakfast in his future, goddammit, and an invigorating need to look as good as he ever did while eating it.  
  
It took some effort for all four of them to get untangled and off the bed, but they eventually managed it without anyone actually bodily falling off. Freshly freed and newly motivated, Richie stumbled blindly toward the bathroom. Stan trailed behind him, carrying a backpack Richie hadn’t even noticed the night before.  
  
“I’m not opposed to sharing the shower with you, but you can’t get mad at me if I get a little handsy.”  
  
“Shut up, Dick,” Stan sighed, shoving Richie through the bathroom doorway. “No one wants to get anywhere near showering with your skinny ass, I’m just brushing my teeth.”  
  
Sometimes, when he was feeling homesick and nostalgic at school, Richie wondered what it would have been like to go to the same college as all of his best friends. Growing up they’d always been in each other’s pockets, running wild through the summers and banded together like a pack through the school year, but they’d always had their own houses to retreat back to at night, their own little bubbles of parents and family dinners and early morning rituals that they didn’t really share. But college, Richie had realized very quickly, eliminated so many of those boundaries. He tried to remember if Stan had ever before felt comfortable enough to follow Richie into the bathroom, to stand at the counter and brush his teeth while Richie burned himself on scalding hot water. To snark loudly about Richie steaming up the mirror but not actually caring enough to leave the bathroom, apparently.  
  
Oh yeah, Stan definitely missed him.  
  
Richie had missed him too. Richie had missed all of them, _desperately_ , but that didn’t stop him from dreading breakfast. Something had been irrevocably changed in the balance and dynamic of their group, even if the rest of them didn’t know it yet. It had been easy to talk to them all one-on-one throughout the semester, but to have everyone together again, for the first time since winter break? Reality would be unavoidable then. The rest of them would notice. Richie had taken his own two hands and done the very thing he’d always been so afraid of – he started the slow, inevitable unraveling of their friendship. And pretty soon the rest of them would know it too.  
  
By the time Richie slid the shower curtain back and stepped out into the admittedly steamy bathroom Stan had changed into a polo and khakis, his hair tamed into something that didn’t look like he’d slept on it for nine hours, and apparently _had_ left the bathroom, just long enough to swap out his backpack for the one Richie himself had forgotten. Thank God for that, honestly – Richie was starting to become acutely aware that his mouth tasted like something had died in it, and he dove for his toothbrush with all the grace and poise of a squirrel.  
  
“So,” Stan said finally, and _ah_. Richie knew there was a reason he was still there. “This is probably your last chance to talk about it before…”  
  
Before. Before he walked into more jokes like the one Bill had started. Before he was faced with a room full of people who expected another performance of the Richie and Eddie show, all sass all the time. Before he had to sit squished into the same too-small booth as the bitchy little asshole that had _stomped on his heart,_ the fucker.  
  
Richie spat out a mouthful of toothpaste and shrugged. Honestly, what was there to talk about, really?  
  
“Can you pass me my contacts?” he asked instead, gesturing for his backpack. He was trying to study his hair in the still-foggy mirror, but that was way easier said than done. “And there’s a bottle of mousse in there somewhere – yeah that one.”  
  
“Demanding showers, putting mousse in your hair, who _are you?”_ Stan teased, handing over the contacts first. Richie slipped them in easily, blinking until he could finally fucking see something, and then smirked at Stan.  
  
“There’s a time and place for being a hot mess, Stanny,” he said bluntly. He squeezed out just enough mousse to hold his curls without making them look greasy, scraped his foam-covered fingers through his wet hair. “And there’s a time and place for looking as fuckable as you can manage.”  
  
College taught Richie a lot of things, so far. He was taking classes that were stimulating and thought provoking, he met students and professors from all walks of life, laundry was a lot less complicated than he’d been afraid of.  
  
But college also taught Richie a lot about people. Richie had always been a fan of people-watching, had always been in touch with the deep-rooted desire to make people laugh, to lasso their attention and push their buttons. He’d been accused of being oblivious to his effect on people – both positive and negative – but Richie was far from it, really. He knew how to read people, how to interact with them, how to get a reaction out of them – he just had a tendency, when he was younger, to be more interested in poking at the _wrong_ buttons just to see what would explode.  
  
But Richie had spent the last year trying new approaches. For the first time in his life Richie was in a place where nobody knew him, where he didn’t have a reputation for being anything other than an incoming freshman, and that was an opportunity to experiment with using his people skills in a whole new way.  
  
He hadn’t been lying last night when he told Stan he’d been doing _just fine_ with both the guys and the girls at Geneseo.  
  
Richie reached into the backpack Stan was still holding in his lap and pulled out a pair of dark wash jeans and a maroon t-shirt. Stan gaped dramatically.  
  
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you wear solid colors.”  
  
“Time and place, Stanley.”  
  
Both the jeans and the shirt were a little more fitted than was really in style, but Richie had a good friend at school who was a fashion diva and insisted “the slim fit look is coming back, Rich, and you’re going to be ahead of the curve,” right before making him spend way too much money on a single pair of jeans.  
  
At least the jeans did fantastic things to his ass. Richie would take any weapon he could if it added to his arsenal.  
  
“Well?” he said finally, holding up both hands and looking expectantly at Stan. Stan gave him a critical once over, studying the tight line of the t-shirt over Richie’s shoulders, the bizarre illusion that he actually had biceps, the slight curve of the jeans around his hips, until a slow, lascivious smirk spread across Stan’s face.  
  
“Eddie’s going to shit himself,” he said bluntly. “Hell, I’d fuck you.”  
  
Richie beamed. “That, Stanley my love, is the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

 

 

 

Mike was the first one to notice them. He yelled Richie’s name across the crowded dinner and Richie couldn’t fight the grin off his face as Mike scrambled out of their booth and ran toward him. It was so _fucking good_ to see them again, to see _all of them_ , God he’d missed his friends _so fucking much_. He’d forgotten that. That buried underneath the fear and guilt and _hurt_ he’d been stewing in for four months was his deep, unending love for his best friends.  
  
Richie threw his arms out wide and waited for Mike to barrel into him, hugging Richie tight enough to lift him up slightly off the ground. Richie was helpless with laughter as he wrapped his arms around Mike’s shoulders and held on through the bear hug.  
  
Still, Richie could see over Mike to the table behind them, where Eddie sat coughing so hard his face was turning red, a glass of water in front of his mouth like he’d been mid-sip. Like something had startled him into swallowing the wrong way.  
  
Stan slapped Richie’s back lightly, right as Mike put him down again, and slid into the booth after Bill with a loud “geez, Kaspbrak, I thought you’d be better at swallowing than that. No one’s carrying an extra inhaler around for you anymore, you better be careful.”  
  
Goddammit, Richie loved him so fucking much. Eddie Kaspbrak? Who the fuck was he. Stanley Uris was the love of Richie Tozier’s tragic life. A sexual innuendo, an insult, _and_ a subtle dig at the fact that Richie wasn’t sitting around fawning over Eddie anymore. Stan didn’t even know the extent of it, didn’t even know _half_ of it, just knew that Eddie coming home with a boyfriend was going to fuck Richie up, and that was good enough for him.  
  
Richie didn’t deserve Stanley fucking Uris.  
  
And then Ben was sliding out from his seat next to Eddie in the oversized round booth, and Richie was suddenly entirely too busy gaping at him. He detangled himself from Mike with a loud, smacking kiss to his cheek that left Mike laughing, and turned to Ben with his hands held out in a wide ‘what the fuck’ gesture.  
  
“Holy shit, what happened to you? Did you ever actually sleep, or have you just been living inside the gym all year? I bet you have – fuck, you do, look at you!” Richie grabbed at the hem of Ben’s shirt, yanking it up far enough to see a hint of abs defining Ben’s stomach. Ben’s face was bright red, but he didn’t even try to stop Richie, and Richie knew Ben was proud of this. Hell, Richie was so fucking proud of this, proud of Ben for shoving back at his own demons and doing _something_ to make himself feel better about them. _God_ he loved his people. “You look incredible, Haystack, Jesus.”  
  
“Thanks, Richie.” Ben finally swatted Richie’s hand away from his stomach, reaching out instead to pull him in for a hug. “You look pretty good yourself, man.”  
  
“It’s all for you, hot stuff” Richie simpered, patting Ben’s cheek.  
  
But also, at the table behind them, “he looks like he’s been shopping in the kids’ section,” mumbled _just_ loudly enough for Richie and Ben to hear it. Ben gave Richie a sympathetic look as he pulled away, soft and apologetic, and Richie’s good mood soured. If this was how it was going to be from now on, everyone looking all puppy-dog-eyed at Richie every time Eddie so much as breathed in his direction, the scene was going to get old really fucking fast. And that was how it started…he’d start avoiding them, just to avoid the awkwardness, to avoid the tension, to avoid being miserable, and _fuck_.  
  
In a round booth it was pretty impossible to not be sitting close to someone, and for the better part of their lives Richie had always, always claimed the seat right in the back and center, right next to Eddie, but his sweet beautiful wonderful friends seemed to know better. Bev and Ben sat to one side of Eddie, Mike, Stan, and Bill blocking him in on the other. Richie slipped into the empty end seat next to Ben and hid his gratitude behind a too-bright smile.  
  
“So,” he clapped his hands together and put on his Radio Host Voice, the one that never failed to get the attention of the room. “Who has gossip? Life updates. Ridiculous college stories. If it doesn’t end with you shirtless and passed out under a stranger’s bed then it’s not worth telling, but I probably want to hear it anyway. Who’s going first?”  
  
“Well, I’ve kind of been seeing this girl,” Stan said, all matter-of-factly. Richie gaped across the table at him.  
  
“Stanley! You don’t spend the night with a man and then wait ‘til morning to break his heart! Jesus, how long you been sleeping on that one!?”  
  
Eddie, from the sound of it, was having trouble with his water again. Richie didn’t bother looking at him.  
  
“Wow guys, already having sleepovers without us? I was kidding about it taking you five minutes to be reattached at the hip,” Bill chimed in.  
  
“Bill,” Richie said earnestly, “Stan was already at my house when I got home. He was _waiting for me_.”  
  
“I was just –”  
  
“Pining,” Bill and Bev said in unison.  
  
“My favorite,” Richie cooed simultaneously.  
  
“I hate you all,” Stan said sulkily, as the rest of the table laughed.  
  
“Someone pinch his cheeks for me, I can’t reach,” Richie begged, reaching across the table without coming anywhere close to Stan’s face. Bill, bless his heart, happily complied.  
  
“Get a room,” Eddie grumbled. Richie ignored him.  
  
“So, tell us more,” Ben said loudly, cutting over Eddie. “What’s the story?”  
  
“Not really much of a story,” Stan shrugged. “We only went out like twice before the semester ended, nothing too serious. I guess we’ll see what happens when the semester starts up again, go from there.”  
  
“Good for you, man.” Mike nudged his shoulder into Stan’s, looking so earnest that it broke Richie’s heart a little bit. “I hope it works out.”  
  
“What about you?” Richie threw Mike a pointed look, nodding at him. “Any beautiful women stumble your way recently?”  
  
“Hell no,” Mike laughed, shaking his head with a self-deprecating smile on his face. “Besides, why are you even asking _me_ when you’re sitting next to all that glory?” He waved one hand at Ben’s newly-honed everything.  
  
“Yeah!” Bill chimed in. “You must be beating them off with a stick.”  
  
“Beep beep, _all of you_ ,” Ben sighed, much to the delight of the rest of the table. “Not even close. I had to declare my major this semester, which means I spent pretty much all of my time at the library or the gym. Not much of a social life in either of those places.”  
  
“You’re going to the wrong school then, man,” Richie laughed. “The Milne is the _place to be_ on Sundays.”  
  
“More importantly,” Bev jumped in, leaning in toward Ben, “what did you declare?”  
  
“It might be crazy,” Ben said with a shrug, his face turning red again. “I don’t know. Remember that time we built that clubhouse, back when we were kids? I just, I was thinking about that, and…well, engineering.”  
  
“I think you’ll be amazing at it,” Bev said firmly, wrapping an arm around Ben’s shoulders and giving him a little sideways hug that, Richie assumed, probably made Ben’s entire day.  
  
“My boyfriend’s an engineering major,” Eddie added. “It seems like a _ton_ of work, but he says it’s really interesting, so as long as you like it that’s what matters.”  
  
There was a pause, just on the awkward side of too long, where no one said anything. It took Richie a beat to realize that it was because everyone – sans Eddie – was looking at him. No…no, even Eddie was looking at him. Not quite directly at him, not in a way that would result in accidental eye contact, but close enough that Eddie would be able to gauge Richie’s reaction.  
  
“I fucked an engineer this semester,” Richie said nonchalantly. He took a sip from his water glass, raised an eyebrow at Stan across the table. “Sound engineer though, not the kind that builds clubhouses. He works at the radio station with me, actually.”  
  
“Was that the one I met at that mixer?” Bill asked.  
  
“Oh yeah!” Richie grinned. He and Bill had done some _damage_ the weekend Bill came to visit – it had been wild and debaucherous in the way that only college freshmen could be, and they had fucking _reveled in it_. “Yeah, like two weeks after you came up to visit.”  
  
“He was hot,” Bill mused, nodding thoughtfully. “I’ll allow it.”  
  
“Thanks, Big Bill,” Richie laughed. “He’s dating my friend Amanda now, but I’m still glad you approve.”  
  
“Didn’t you hook up with your friend Amanda?” Bev asked, leaning around Ben to give Richie a capital-L Look.  
  
“What can I say, she was pretty hot too, right Bill?”  
  
Bill shrugged, smiling sheepishly, and most of the table laughed.  
  
“Wow, we’re _so_ proud of your sluttiness,” Eddie snarled.  
  
“Jealous?” Stan asked, a perfectly mild expression on his face as he glanced over at Eddie. He let it settle in the air, just for a second, before adding. “I mean, the grass must look greener on the other side of the fence when you don’t get to play the field.”  
  
Stanley _fucking_ Uris.  
  
“At least I’m getting some regularly,” Eddie shot back, even as he blushed a deep, telling red. “I’m sure you and your two dates didn’t get all that far, must have been a pretty dry semester for you.”  
  
“Pretty dry semester for all of us,” Bill cut in, shooting Stan a look out of the corner of his eye. “Remember when we were all here last summer talking about how college was going to be _the dream_ , the escape from loserdom and the land of sexual freedom and God knows what else we thought was possible?”  
  
“Speak for yourself, Bill,” Mike said wryly, “Derry’s still just as Derry as it was before you all left.”  
  
Everyone laughed, but there was an extra strain of tension in it that hadn’t been there before. Mike stayed in Derry voluntarily and eagerly, made it more than abundantly clear that he was happy taking correspondence classes while working on his family’s – his, really, by now – farm. But there was still something weird in knowing that Mike stayed, something that made it feel more like they’d abandoned him than like they’d all naturally just gone their separate ways.  
  
“You gotta come visit, next semester,” Richie said loudly, reaching around the gap in the bench to clap Mike on the shoulder. “I’ll bring you to a party, you’ll meet more people in one night than you’ve met this year. And the girls, Mikey, you’re going to _love them_.”  
  
“Oh yeah, upstate New York ladies,” Stan scoffed. “Come to Georgia, all of you. We’ll show you some good old Southern hospitality.”  
  
“Who’s _we_ , you’re still from Maine,” Ben teased, grinning. “They remind me of that every single day in Texas.”  
  
“Oh my god, guys, who cares,” Bev sighed dramatically. “Sorry Ben, not you. I mean, there are hot girls _everywhere_. None of you are special. Hot guys, too,” she added, cutting Richie off with a knowing look before he could say anything. “Tell me about your _actual_ _lives_ , not your fantasy sex lives. Or, at the very least, order your damn breakfast, Brenda’s waiting.”  
  
She was. But Brenda was always their waitress, and Brenda was one of the few adults in Derry that didn’t look like the very life and soul had been sucked out of her. She loved the little gang of losers that had been camping out in her diner since middle school, wasted a good few minutes pinching Richie’s cheeks and scolding him and Ben both for not eating enough, poking at Stan’s mystery date until he coughed up a few more facts. When she left to put their orders in Richie felt like he could choke on his nostalgia for Derry, his affection and warmth and love for this stupid town. He leaned into Ben’s side and started shooting question after question at him, coaxing out more details about the engineering degree, what Ben thought he might concentrate in, what that meant for his life after undergrad.  
  
Ben, after a few false starts that seemed to hinge more on embarrassment than unwillingness to share, slowly started giving Richie more and more detailed answers. He sounded _happy_ , he sounded like he was really excited and enthusiastic and confident in a way he so often wasn’t, and Richie was so _proud_ of him.  
  
Except theirs wasn’t the only conversation at the round table, and Richie couldn’t filter out the other one. Couldn’t stop himself from hearing Eddie’s voice, the smooth, warm way he said _my boyfriend_ , laced with affection and just a hint of smugness. “ _My boyfriend_ and I go into the city sometimes, you should come down and visit one weekend, Bill.” “You should go see _Toy Story_ for sure, Stan, I think you’d like it. _My boyfriend_ wasn’t so sure about seeing a ‘kids movie’ but I wanted to see it so badly he gave in and he _loved_ it. It’s so good, honest.” “Staten Island’s alright, but I’m not really sure about it. _My_ _boyfriend_ says it’s a man-made island, built on a dump. I’m living on _garbage_ , can you guys even believe that?”  
  
(Richie could, and in a different life Richie would be halfway across the table at that news, laughing his ass off about Trashmouth and Eddie the Garbage Man. But they didn’t live in that life, not anymore, now they were _here_.)  
  
Here, where Richie tried so desperately to listen to Ben talk about the difference between mechanical and industrial engineering and the merits of both concentrations. He _tried_ , he asked questions and stared intently at Ben’s face and nodded along to the answers, but the voice in his head was just _Eddie Eddie Eddie_ and his fucking trash-pile city-living movie-loving _boyfriend_.  
  
And when Bev leaned in to catch Ben’s attention and lead him her way, a question and a nudge about post–graduate education and would he ever consider the Midwest, what about Chicago – that was worse. That was _worse_ than feeling bad for not listening to Ben, because now Richie had nothing, no distractions, no outlets, nothing to focus on but the tear in his lungs that made it hard to breathe every time Eddie said “ _My_ _boyfriend_ and I were at – ”  
  
“Damn, does the poor guy have a name or do you even call him _My Boyfriend_ when he’s fucking you?”  
  
Eddie turned on a dime, like Richie knew he would, but the vitriol he’d been expecting wasn’t there beyond the angry flash of Eddie’s eyes. No, instead Eddie looked _indifferent_ , like Richie was nothing more than an acquaintance at a party, buzzing around the edge of a conversation and throwing in a comment where he didn’t quite fit. Annoying, maybe, but ultimately insignificant. Richie had been doing his level best to ignore Eddie since he’d walked in the door, sure, but _Eddie_ had been snide and nasty in a way Richie sure as fuck didn’t deserve. Richie was _entitled_ to one good jab, thank you very much, and Eddie could have the goddamn decency to look affected by it.  
  
“Don’t worry, _Miles_ rolls off the tongue just fine when I’m moaning it,” Eddie said sweetly.  
  
He didn’t bother waiting for a response, just turned back toward Bill like nothing had happened. Like Bill wasn’t staring at Eddie, like Bev wasn’t gaping open-mouthed at Ben. But Richie was ready for this, Richie had been _waiting_ for this, and he didn’t miss a goddamn beat when he snapped back.  
  
“Well, I suppose that’s better than _Eddie!_ ” Richie let his voice go high and tight and whiny, a better impression of Mrs. Kaspbrak than he’d ever managed before in his life. It might’ve been a joke, in another time, except for the bite in Richie’s voice as he spit the words out.  
  
“At least he knows my name, gives him a leg up over you.”  
  
In a better time, a better tone, a place less stifled with tension and apprehension radiating from every corner, Richie would’ve taken that and run with it. Deep in a humid, late-night house party or the dark back corner of a bar Richie would’ve smirked, leaned in close enough to whisper directly into the shell of Eddie’s ear that he’d be happy to let Eddie get a leg up on him, give them both a chance to prove that Richie _definitely_ knew Eddie’s name _._ Hell, a year ago in this very same diner Richie might’ve done the same, blown Eddie a kiss and a wink across the booth and delighted in the way Eddie’s cheeks turned pink.  
  
But now in the middle of a crowded diner, where the lights were suddenly too bright and the pressure in the room could crush a lesser group of people, things were different. Where Ben was shifting uncomfortably and Mike was focused on the salt shaker like he could disappear into it if he tried hard enough, Stan was staring daggers through the side of Eddie’s head and Bill and Beverly still hadn’t moved. Now things had changed.  
  
And Richie couldn’t shake the memory, hazy with alcohol and sleeplessness, deep on the wrong side of midnight, of running his hand down Eddie’s side and his lips up Eddie’s throat, pressing the word _Eddie, Eddie, Eddie_ over and over into Eddie’s skin. Of Eddie tightening his grip in Richie’s hair and whispering _fuck_ , _Richie_ back.  
  
“Yeah, you know what,” Richie stood up, fished into his too-tight back pocket for his wallet, “I’m not really hungry, and I still have to unpack my car.” He threw a handful of cash on the table, more than enough to cover the breakfast platter that he hadn’t even been served yet. “Let me know what the plan is for later, I’ll meet up with you guys.”  
  
He walked away calmly. Didn’t storm off or make a scene of it, tried not to look too much like he was running away. He _wasn’t_ running away, just refused to sit slowly suffocating at that table for another minute longer than necessary. Richie didn’t deserve that, and his friends didn’t deserve that, and even Eddie, really, didn’t deserve that. He had made his choice and that was _fine_ , and Richie had had four whole months to get over that _mistake_.  
  
“What the _fuck_ , Eddie?” he heard Mike hiss, snappy and sharp. Richie shoved the door open a little harder than necessary, gave in to the urge to bolt outside before he could hear anything else. Mike didn’t get angry, Mike didn’t get involved – Richie didn’t want to be around to hear that fiasco. Didn’t want to feel guilt – fucking _guilt_ , why should _he_ feel guilty – in the sunken depths of his stomach.  
  
Goddammit, he really was so fucking hungry. He still had that sandwich from last night but damn had he been looking forward to those pancakes. Richie wondered if Stan loved him enough to bring a to go box of his breakfast back to the Tozier house. Maybe not on a regular day, but overprotective asshole Stan had clearly been at play since the minute Richie got home, so _maybe._ Maybe they could sit on his bed and shovel bacon into their mouths (because kosher Stanley only existed at home) and pretend life outside his bedroom didn’t exist.  
  
_“Richie!”  
  
_Richie stopped walking. He didn’t turn around – he didn’t need to, he’d know that voice if it uttered one single word in a sold-out football stadium. Instead he just scrubbed the heel of his hand over his brow, closed his suddenly burning eyes, and waited for Eddie to catch up to him.  
  
“Why are you walking?”  
  
Richie’s eyes snapped open. He stared at Eddie, incredulous, and watched him shrug with something between defiance and indifference. Really? That was how Eddie wanted to kick off this conversation, with questions about his transportation options? What was next, were they going to talk about the weather?  
  
“No car,” Richie said, forcing himself to sound calm, casual. Indifferent. “Bill drove us here.”  
  
“Right,” Eddie nodded. “Come on, I’ll drive you home.”  
  
“I’m good,” Richie shrugged. “Go back inside.”  
  
“And face Mike again?” Eddie said wryly, the first sign of actual emotion cracking the mask of his indifference. “No thanks. My car’s over here.”  
  
“No really, I’m good.”  
  
“It’s four miles back to your house.” Eddie sounded exasperated, a little frustrated. Richie more than understood _those_ particular feelings right now.  
  
“I could use the walk,” he said shortly.  
  
Eddie huffed out a breath, and for a second it was like nothing had changed. Like it was just them as they’d always been after a meaningless fight, Richie being stupid and stubborn, Eddie hiding his guilt behind indifference, both of them pushing closer and closer to cracking a joke until finally one of them broke the tension in the air and everything went from bitter to beautiful again.  
  
But that wasn’t true, not like this. Neither one of them was coming back from this with a few well-timed eye rolls and a twist of self-deprecating humor.  
  
“Look, I’m sorry about what I said, okay? Just get in the car, Richie, we should–”  
  
“How long have you and what’s his name been seeing each other?” Richie asked suddenly, and it was one of _those_ questions. One of those times when Richie’s subconscious was faster than the rest of him, when thoughts came out of his mouth that he hadn’t even processed yet. He thought he’d gotten better at that, at filtering himself and reigning in that childish impulse and using his fucking brain every now and then, but Eddie always did bring out the worst in him.  
  
“Richie…”  
  
“How long?” It was the hesitation that made Richie’s blood run cold, that made him suddenly, acutely aware of _why_ he was asking and how much he _wasn’t_ going to like the answer.  
  
“It’s complicated.” Eddie said cautiously. Elusive and sly, the aggression suddenly gone from his tone. Richie didn’t recognize him. _His_ Eddie was snappy and biting, kept Richie on his toes with every comeback fired off as good as Richie gave, friendly or otherwise.  
  
“Well, I know I’m pretty stupid, but if you use small words and talk slow I might be able to understand it,” Richie said, patience running thin. It didn’t matter, it was a moot point by now – he already had all the answer that mattered.  
  
Eddie closed his eyes for a beat longer than a blink, visibly composing himself before meeting Richie’s glare head on and admitting “technically since Thanksgiving.”  
  
_Since Thanksgiving_.  
  
“But it wasn’t like that, though,” he added quickly. “Not _then_ , it wasn’t. We weren’t anything official until…”  
  
“Aw, wait, let me guess,” Richie jumped in. All the _hurt_ he’d been marinating in was melting into something else, crystalizing into something harsher, harder. “You went home for winter break, made a drunken mistake or two, and that’s what made you realize your feelings for him. Oh my god, how _sweet_ ,” he cooed, vitriol like venom in his voice, bitter and sharp. “Don’t forget to invite me to the wedding, I can give a great speech about the time you cheated on him with me and that’s what convinced you of your one true love.”  
  
“Oh, for fuck’s sake Richie,” Eddie snapped, _finally_ squaring up into fighting stance, “I just _said_ it wasn’t – I didn’t _cheat on him_ –”  
  
“No?” Richie shook his head, “then what, it really was just _me_ that was the mistake?”  
  
Eddie deflated like an old balloon. And that, really, was the crux of it, wasn’t it? At the end of the day it didn’t matter whether or not Eddie had a boyfriend. What mattered was that Richie wanted Eddie, Richie _wanted_ him, and Eddie wasn’t ever going to want Richie back.  
  
“It wasn’t...I didn’t mean…” Eddie sounded helpless, sounded speechless, tripping over himself as the fight went out of him as quickly as it came.  
  
“It wasn’t _what_?” Richie spat, voice breaking with his newfound anger and the _hurt_ he’d so desperately been trying to hide. “It wasn’t what?”  
  
But Eddie just shook his head. He didn’t know, or he didn’t know how to say it, or he didn’t want to hurt Richie, or _whatever who fucking cared anymore_. Richie didn’t care. That was for fucking sure. He took a deep breath, willed the bite and bark out of his voice, wet his lips thoughtfully before finally opening his mouth again.  
  
“I don’t know what you expected to happen here,” he said carefully. A little coldly, maybe, but not cruelly. “I don’t know if you thought that we’d come home again and things would just go back to normal, that you’d snark at me and I’d tease you back and we’d pretend that nothing ever happened. I don’t know how you thought I’d take the boyfriend bomb, or if you even thought about it at all, who fucking knows you probably didn’t."  
  
Eddie made a noise, not quite a protest and quiet enough that it didn’t really interrupt. Richie ignored him. Pulled himself together just a little bit – literally, drew himself up to his full height, back straight and shoulders square, looked down on Eddie in every way possible.  
  
“I’ll tell you what is going to happen here,” he continued. “You’re going to go back inside. Tell Mike we’re fine, everything’s cool. Or avoid him, get in your car, go home. I don’t really care. And when it comes down to it, we’ll be civil. Fine. We’re not going to be dicks that put our friends in the shitty position of having to choose between us. But you were right.”  
  
“It wasn’t –”  
  
“No, it _was_.” Richie cut Eddie off. His voice was soft – softer than he would have expected it to be, softer maybe than it had ever been before. Soft and quiet and deadly calm. “It was a mistake. And I don’t know if I can just _pretend it never happened_. So I’m going to go. And you’re going to leave me the _fuck_ alone.”  
  
“Don’t you think maybe we should talk about it?” Eddie asked, a little desperately. “You just _left_ , you didn’t even tell anyone you were leaving. I haven’t seen you in _months_ , we should _talk about it_.”  
  
“Honestly?” Richie laughed, a hoarse, hollow little sound that sounded achingly bitter even to him. “I’d rather never talk to you again.”  
  
And Eddie just…stood there. Just stood there and took it, nodded slightly and made absolutely no other move. So Richie nodded too. Just once. Nodded once and then turned around pointedly and didn’t look back. Just left Eddie standing outside the diner, silent and staring, as the threads that had always bound them together snapped and broke with every step Richie took.

 

* * *

_  
Peel your skin back to show what you're made of;  
_ _Too bad you never did have the guts to know where your heart should go.  
  
_

* * *

_  
_ There is a playlist for  _Winterbreak_ \- if you'd like to listen to the whole thing all at once, you can find it [here](https://open.spotify.com/user/1239648869/playlist/3pS5XQu7CkeCfp33mD5zeE?si=4ejxt-_tQ9qTSHiu177vrw). If you'd like to listen chapter by chapter, the chapter 1 playlist is [here](https://open.spotify.com/user/1239648869/playlist/4DJPbdXfhswCbCiFJdArG3?si=X-BZ6aZIReyuHHqJTT-m9w). I'm mostly a lurker on tumblr these days, but if you'd like to pick my brain about my very firm and utterly baseless headcanons about Richie Tozier you can find me [here](http://thegloryof.tumblr.com/). 


	2. Winter Break, Sophomore Year

**Chapter 2 – Winter Break, Sophomore Year  
**_Angry or Sad - WVNDER_  


* * *

  
Every year since the fifth grade, in an effort to make his Jewish best friend feel included, Richie had bought Stan a Christmas present. Over time it became a beloved tradition, one that stretched out to include the rest of them, that turned into their annual Secret Santa gift exchange. But not just any gift – no: the tackiest, most obnoxious, most ridiculous Christmas-themed gift they could find. It should be personally tailored and thoughtful, not just a random weird Christmas decoration, but no less outrageous. It must be bought within a 48-hour window of time. And because of course, life is nothing without a little motivation, it became a competition. There was, naturally, a prize for the winner.  
  
They all hoarded who they had like little secrets, kept their gift ideas hidden, forced their parents to write out name tags so nobody could guess who the giver was ahead of time. They’d pulled names on the Thursday before Christmas and had two days to find the best gift before the annual Losers Club Family Christmas Party out at Mike’s on Saturday night. It was usually the longest any of them went without seeing each other while home, staying isolated and on the mission while they shopped madly for the _best_ monstrosity their tiny little town had to offer.  
  
Richie _lived for it_.  
  
So he was a little bit surprised when, bright and early the Friday morning before Christmas, he opened his front door to find Ben Hanscom standing on his porch.  
  
“Hey man,” Ben said easily, shoving his hands into his pockets and giving Richie a wide, guileless smile. If it was anyone else Richie would have been immediately and irreparably suspicious, but it was _Ben_. Ben might be a total hot-ass beefcake these days, but he was still the nicest human being Richie had ever met.  
  
“Benny-boy!” He grinned, reached out and grabbed Ben’s shoulder with only a tiny little grope at his obscene arm muscles, and dragged him inside. “Come on, you’re just in time for breakfast.”  
  
Ben followed him into the kitchen, where the remnants of a monster bacon egg and cheese sandwich were strewn across the counter in a tantalizing display. It was a well-known, lovingly-acknowledged fact that Richie’s dark horse secret talent was cooking and that his specialty was breakfast – Ben didn’t even pretend to protest before settling into a stool by the counter.  
  
“Eggs runny or dry?” Richie asked, switching the burner back on with a quick flick. “Bread toasted or not? Bacon crispy or rubbery? Salt and pepper? What delicious and ridiculous scheme do you have for me this morning?”  
  
“Dry, toasted, no bacon, salt and pepper,” Ben ticked each answer off on his fingers, trusting that Richie didn’t need to be told twice. “What makes you think I’m here with a ridiculous scheme?”  
  
“ _No bacon_ ,” Richie echoed, fake scandalized. “Because it’s nine AM the Friday of Secret Santa weekend and everyone knows I’m the resident expert on anything devious, foxy, or of questionable morality.”  
  
“I usually go to Stan for all of the above,” Ben replied, shrugging like he was so nonchalant about it even though he couldn’t keep the grin off his face.  
  
Richie laughed delightedly.  
  
“Never undermine a man cooking you breakfast, you don’t know what he’ll put in your food,” he warned pointing his spatula at Ben. But Ben just rolled his eyes and kept grinning, warm and open and a little bit smug.  
  
“Okay, okay. So I’ve been doing some research. There’s this huge mall over in Portland, they have a bunch of different stores than what we have here. I figured that was the best way to get some Secret Santa gifts that nobody saw coming.”  
  
“Shit, dude,” Richie nodded approvingly. He pulled two halves of a Kaiser roll out of the toaster and dropped them quickly onto a waiting plate, laid a slice of cheese across the bottom half. “You really did put some thought into this. You sure you want to share the glory with me though?”  
  
“It’s a long drive, you’re the only one that likes driving enough to even consider it,” Ben said honestly. Richie always liked that about him – Ben didn’t try to make up a reason why he wanted Richie involved, didn’t try to deny that it was a little bit out of character for him to come to _Richie_ first on anything.  
  
“But also,” Ben continued, “I have Stan, and I want to get him something really good. He seems kinda bummed, I want to make him laugh. And _everyone knows_ you’re the resident expert on making Stan laugh.”  
  
And goddamn, isn’t that just the other thing about Ben freaking Hanscom? How genuine, how earnest, how could Richie _possibly_ say no to that, even if he wanted to? (He didn’t, of course not, he was already planning what CDs he wanted to grab and trying to remember if he needed gas.)  
  
Plus, Ben was right. Stan _had_ been a walking bummer since he got home Tuesday night – Richie had tried more than once over the last few days to pry it out of him, but Stan wasn’t talking.  
  
“Eat up, sunshine, we got a big day ahead of us,” Richie declared, sliding the freshly plated egg sandwich across the counter to Ben. “I have Mike, and I’m not leaving that mall until I find a black Santa or a Santa Claus garden gnome.”  
  
“I swear on this sandwich, Richie Tozier, we will find you a black Santa garden gnome,” Ben said solemnly, only slightly muffled by the mouthful of eggs he was attempting to speak around. He swallowed, then nodded at Richie once. “Did you want to put pants on before we did that, though?”  
  
Richie glanced down, entirely surprised to notice that he was, in fact, standing in his kitchen in an oversized Henley and a pair of boxers so ratty and old that he was more or less free-ballin’ it in Ben’s face right now.    
  
“Huh,” he shrugged. “Yeah, I guess. Be back by the time you’re done with that.”  
  
He’d underestimated slightly. By the time Richie made it back to the kitchen – this time in baggy jeans and a long-sleeved striped shirt, hair slightly less messy and glasses swapped out for contacts – Ben had not only finished his sandwich but also cleaned up the mess of dishes and ingredients Richie had left behind.  
  
“Dude, you didn’t have to,” Richie started, but Ben shrugged him off.  
  
“Least I could do. Besides, now we’re ready to go, right?”  
  
“Ben my dear, if I’d known you were this eager to be alone with me I would’ve tried to sleep with you years ago,” Richie teased. But he felt it too, that specific fire under your ass of having a good plan and just wanting to _get to it_ already. And really, he had a stack of CDs in his hand and sunglasses hanging from his collar, shoes on his feet and his wallet in his pocket. What else were they waiting for, an invitation?  
  
“I was fat years ago,” Ben said bluntly, “you wouldn’t even have considered it.”  
  
“Fat doesn’t make you not cute, dumbass.” Richie cuffed Ben across the back of the head with his free hand, used the motion to guide him back out of the kitchen. “You were always cute.”  
  
“I looked like a chicken nugget,” Ben argued, following Richie to the front door and obligingly holding the CD cases Richie thrust out at him.  
  
“And who doesn’t like chicken nuggets!”  
  
Ben just shook his head, that familiar expression of fond exasperation on his face, but Richie saw his blush. Clearly he hadn’t spent enough time hitting on Ben over the years.  
  
He spent a solid half of the car ride attempting to make up for that. Ben didn’t exactly make it easy, mostly because he just laughed self-consciously and blushed in response, or rolled his eyes and told Richie to quit it. Richie didn’t quit it – Richie doubled down on his efforts until Ben finally yelled “okay fine, I was a cute chicken nugget!” and they both laughed so hard Richie nearly crashed the car. It was surprisingly fun, more fun than Richie had had in a while, thanks to finals, and two hours flew by in a blur of playful flirting and laughing their asses off and singing along to an embarrassing number of top 40s pop songs.  
  
“Holy shit Benny-boy, you weren’t kidding about this place,” Richie whistled low under his breath when they finally walked through the mall entrance. The whole building was decked out floor to ceiling in garland and lights and gaudy oversized ornaments. Giant snowflakes hung from the ceiling, candy canes and nutcrackers taller than Richie flanked the doorway they’d just come in through, and the Christmas music was loud enough to be heard even over the din of last-minute shoppers. Christmas Eve was Sunday, the mall was packed with more people than Richie had ever seen in one place in his life.  
  
“We’re bound to get lucky here,” Ben agreed, sounding a little overwhelmed.  
  
Richie, watching a pair of girls walking by in unseasonably short dresses and knee socks, staring at Ben like he was a movie star, grinned wolfishly.  
  
“Oh, you’ll definitely be getting lucky,” he laughed.  
  
“Oh my god, Rich, aren’t you done yet?” Ben groaned. He didn’t notice the girls, or the one who waved coyly when Richie caught her eye. Or the saleswoman in Macy’s who asked leading questions about whether or not Ben was shopping for his girlfriend, only to coo delightedly about how sweet Ben was when he’d admitted he was shopping for his mother. If he’d had a flask Richie could’ve made a game out of it – drink every time Ben was oblivious to someone checking him out, two sips for full-out flirting, finish your drink if Ben actually catches on and blushes and stammers through the rest of interaction.  
  
Before they were even halfway around the first floor Richie had practically forgotten about shopping, so enraptured with watching Ben that Secret Santa was a distant thought.  
  
“Level with me for a second,” Richie said finally. They were at the food court, the first of two floors worth of stores knocked out, and despite the fact that they both had a handful of bags each neither of them had been successful in finding something for Mike or Stan yet.  
  
“Okay, we might have to concede defeat on the black Santa garden gnome,” Ben said solemnly.  
  
“We’re definitely not conceding defeat on the black Santa garden gnome,” Richie insisted, pointing a plastic fork emphatically at Ben. “Never surrender.”  
  
“What, then?”  
  
“Do you genuinely not notice them flirting with you, or do you just not want it and think if you ignore it they’ll give up?”  
  
Ben looked a little startled, followed almost immediately by a slightly shrewd, thoughtful expression. Like maybe he was more surprised by Richie’s blunt, genuine delivery than by the actual question.  
  
Richie, to be fair, didn’t have much of a reputation for taking things seriously. And Ben had never really been exposed to any conversation that might prove otherwise.  
  
Ben mulled it over for a minute or two, and Richie was more than happy to let him. He busied himself with an overly chewy sweet and sour pork dumpling, spent a little bit too long trying to scoop white rice onto a thin plastic fork, let himself drift into the hum and hullabaloo of the overly crowded mall food court.  
  
“At the time I don’t really notice it,” Ben said finally. He bit into a spring roll, Richie waited him out. “I’ll look back on it later and think oh my god, of course, obviously. That cashier touched my arm more than strictly necessary considering there’s a full counter of space between us. That girl’s not _really_ interested in what the logo on my shirt is from.”  
  
“But…” Richie prompted. Ben nodded.  
  
“But,” he agreed. “But, I don’t know. I think I’m not paying enough attention at the time, because the interactions don’t matter. Not that _they_ as people don’t matter, but I mean. They don’t _mean_ anything.”  
  
“Because they don’t know you,” Richie guessed. “Because they’re just hitting on you because they think you’re hot, not because they’re _interested_ in you.”  
  
“Exactly,” Ben nodded again. He pulled his fork mindlessly through the lo mein in front of him, scraping the plastic tongs against the styrofoam container. “Plus they’re not…”  
  
He trailed off, but Richie knew the ending anyway. They’re not Beverly. Ben and Richie might not have ever had a whole lot in common, not really, but they did have one shared fundamental truth – they both knew far too intimately how to carry a slowly-burning torch for one of their closest friends.  
  
“You do the opposite,” Ben said suddenly. He pierced Richie with a look that could’ve pinned him flat, pointed and sharp, but not accusing or malicious. “You’re great at the mindless banter, flirt and leave people feeling all flattered and breathless. But you pretend not to notice, or steamroll right over it, when people are sincerely trying to get your attention.”  
  
“I don’t think anyone’s ever used the word sincere when aimed at me before,” Richie laughed. But it was defensive, and he knew it, and maybe for the first time ever Ben realized it too.  
  
“See,” Ben shrugged. “You deflect, and you flirt, and you brush people off with an ease that doesn’t feel dismissive. None of which makes what I just said untrue, just means that you refuse to acknowledge it.”  
  
Richie smiled. A real smile, a slow curl at the edge of his lips, not wide enough to crinkle the folds of skin around his eyes but wide enough to pop out the dimple in his right cheek. Not a smarmy grin or a smirk or a teasing twist of his lips, an actual, well-earned smile.  
  
“You pay more attention than I’ve ever given you credit for,” he admitted.  
  
“I pay enough attention to know that you let people underestimate you on purpose,” Ben shot back. It wasn’t cruel, and it wasn’t combative – it was just the truth, stated outright in that plaintive way Ben had. “But I see you, Richie Tozier. And you see everyone.”  
  
“Don’t tell anyone,” Richie said coyly. Except it didn’t come out coy, didn’t come across as the moment-breaking quip he meant it to. It sounded a little too raw to be anything but honest, a little too _sincere_ to not be true. Don’t tell _the others_.  
  
“Richie,” Ben sighed. He dropped his fork down into the empty styrofoam container, leveled the full effect of his attention on Richie until Richie had no choice but to stop fidgeting. “Do you really think they don’t know?”  
  
Richie frowned at his own empty plate. Of course they didn’t know.  
  
“Talk about deflecting,” he said finally, fully aware of the hypocrisy of his statement. “Circle back to the original point – if it makes you uncomfortable I’m happy to step in and take the heat off you.”  
  
Ben gave him a long, calculating look that lingered just enough for Richie to squirm a bit under it.  
  
“Yeah, that’d be cool,” he said finally. “Come on, let’s go get hit on by more smarmy saleswomen trying to sell us lingerie for our _girlfriends_.”  
  
“Oh Ben, my love, why’d you have to emphasize it like that,” Richie sighed, following Ben’s lead and gathering up his stuff. “Now I’m contractually required to pretend to be your boyfriend.”  
  
Ben laughed. Like Richie wasn’t totally going to do it. Like he totally _did_ when, fifteen minutes later, a girl in Spencer’s leaned so far across a display table that her tits almost fell out of her shirt (he admired the commitment and tenacity, didn’t hate the eyeful either, but _girl_ ).  
  
She left them alone after that, at least. Pointed them in the direction of a wall full of tacky Christmas novelties and left them to it. There were definitely no black Santas, and nothing that screamed _Stan_ either, but there was something so magnetic about a wall full of cheap gaudy Christmas merch that they lingered for way too long in front of it anyway.  
  
“Oh man,” Ben laughed, picking something up off a shelf, “I wish one of us had Eddie, this would be _perfect_ for him.”  
  
Richie looked over. Despite the stab of anger that pulsed through him at the very _name_ , despite not wanting anything to do with something that was _perfect_ for Eddie. But Ben was holding up a fire-engine red fanny pack with _Christmas Wishes_ embroidered across it in glaringly bright neon green, a garish yellow accenting each letter. A sprig of mistletoe was silk screened on the background in conflicting shades of green and red, but the coup de grace, god bless it, was the bustle of jingle bells attached to the zipper.  
  
“I just don’t understand,” Richie breathed delightedly, gaping at it, anger and Eddie and everything else momentarily shoved aside. “Are the wishes for Christmas kisses? Are we supposed to assume the fanny pack itself is mistletoe? Is it implying you should be kissing what’s _under_ the mistletoe? Are the bells a warning to ward off anyone afraid of being caught in a Christmas kiss showdown?”  
  
Ben started laughing before Richie had even reached the third question, holding it out for Richie to grab. It was cheap and delightfully tacky, absolutely brilliant and _utterly perfect_ for Eddie, goddammit. Richie tried to put it back down, but he couldn’t seem to unclench his fingers from around it. He wanted to buy it. He wanted to burn it. He wanted to give it to Eddie in a poignant and pointed display of “see how well I know you” combined with “see me being the bigger person here,” only to then take it away and throw it down a goddamn sewer.  
  
“You should buy it,” Ben said easily.  
  
“I don’t have Eddie for Secret Santa,” Richie replied dumbly.  
  
“When has that ever stopped you?” Ben snorted.  
  
He’d thought about it. Thought about it way too much, agonized over it for more time than he was willing to admit. What would he do if he’d gotten Eddie for Secret Santa? What do you do when you pull a name out of a hat and have to buy a thoughtful, funny, heartfelt gift for the person you’re in love with but haven’t spoken to in almost a year?  
  
The summer, to absolutely everyone’s surprise except Richie’s, hadn’t gotten better after his first day home. He and Eddie barely spoke, barely interacted, made painfully transparent efforts to _tolerate_ each other when they were forced to be in the same room. Eddie was surly and defensive, Richie was bitter and passive aggressive, their back and forth snide comments escalated into nasty fights on more than one occasion.  
  
It was exactly what Richie had always been afraid of, this festering rot spreading through their group thanks to Richie’s and Eddie’s implosion. He’d tried so hard not to let it affect them when they were all together, tried to pretend like nothing was wrong. But the more time passed the _angrier_ Richie had gotten, the _harder_ it was to hide his hurt and fury. Their friends had been a little bit sympathetic, a little bit baffled, but at least they all chalked it up to Eddie coming home and blindsiding Richie with his surprise boyfriend.  
  
Eddie and what’s-his-face were broken up, though. Bill told Richie a month ago, mentioned in passing on a phone call one night that Eddie had “finally dumped that jackass,” but Richie didn’t question it.  
  
“You should totally buy it for him, you’d probably win twice.”  
  
Sometimes Richie forgot that they didn’t _know._ That even though his friends had given him a pass for his shitty behavior last summer, they had no idea why everything had gone so wrong between Richie and Eddie. They thought they understood him being a dick, him being obviously hurt and upset and a little betrayed. Other than Stan none of them tried to push him into talking about it...which made it easy to just _not_ _tell them_. He didn’t _lie_ to them, just casually omitted the truth that there was a lot more to the story than just Eddie coming home with a boyfriend. He was pretty sure Eddie didn’t tell anyone anything either.  
  
Which meant, he guessed, that they would now expect Eddie’s reverted relationship status to change things. Maybe not right away, obviously it wasn’t just going to _be better,_ but he was sure they expect it’ll at least fix _something_. Like Richie should just suddenly be _okay_ with things again, like Eddie hadn’t _broken his fucking heart_ not just once but _twice_ , that _asshole_.  
  
“I don’t think he’d appreciate it from me,” Richie shrugged, keeping his voice carefully casual. “You should get it.”  
  
“It would definitely be super weird for me to get Eddie a random, slightly mocking but still super hilarious present,” Ben argued.  
  
Richie’s fingers tightened on the fanny pack. He didn’t look at Ben, was pretty sure that after their conversation at lunch he was still a little too transparent to look Ben in the eye right now. But Ben was right – it was a perfect gift for Eddie, if the right person gave it to him. Ben wasn’t the right person.  
  
A year ago Richie would’ve been the right person. Or he wouldn’t have worried about whether or not he _was_ the right person, he would’ve just been brash and ballsy and careless. But a year ago Richie hasn’t been kicked out of his own damn bed by Eddie fucking Kaspbrak, so who the fuck knew whether or not Richie was the right _anything_ anymore.  
  
He flipped the price tag over in his hand. Christmas was the only time of year that Richie was allowed to use his parents’ credit card carte blanche – Christmas presents were fully funded. And the fanny pack was cheap. Just because he _bought it_ didn’t mean he had to actually _give it_ to Eddie. He could decide later. Hell, maybe he’d even tell Ben about it, hash out the details in the car and figure out the best way to get the hell over it. If anyone would understand, Richie thought, it would be Ben.  
  
But Richie couldn’t quite shake that bone-deep anger that had seared itself over the hurt, that had melted a little deeper into him every day since last summer began. Richie was still fucking _pissed_ , didn’t know if he would ever _stop_ being pissed, didn’t even know how it would be possible to look at Eddie and not feel that white-hot flash of rageupsetangerhurt.  
  
“Nah,” Richie said finally. He dropped it back down onto the shelf, flexed his fingers once, twice before shoving them into his pocket. “I’ll pass. Sears next? I’m pretty sure they have a garden section.”  
  
“Yeah, sure,” Ben agreed easily. He sounded so casual, but Richie could feel him staring, eyes burning into the side of Richie’s head. “Let’s go.”

 

  
 

Richie held, in his own two hands, the most glorious material item man had ever created. The Hawaiian shirt was a soft, thin poly-cotton blend, short sleeves, at least two sizes larger than any shirt ever needed to be. It boasted a beautiful, majestic pattern of fat-bellied, white-bearded, sunburnt-nosed Santas in red swimming shorts and a Santa hat, holding an oversized drink in one hand and putting on sunglasses with the other. It was tacky, it was over-the-top, it was hilarious. It was the physical embodiment of Richie in a single shirt. His Secret Santa won the game, hands down no question, Richie would fight anyone that disagreed.  
  
The rules of the Losers Club Annual Secret Santa Exchange were simple. Everybody opened their gifts all at once – while Richie was gaping at his new shirt Mike was bent double over his new garden gnome, Bill was exclaiming loudly over the explosion of glitter that had accompanied his gift. Once everything was opened they went around quickly and showed off what they got, the group voted on the best gift, and only once the winner was determined did everyone finally reveal who they had.  
  
Richie couldn’t wait. He ripped his plain, totally boring thermal over his head and practically threw it across the room (maybe did, actually, if Bev’s squeal of “what the fuck, Tozier!?” counted for anything). The Hawaiian shirt was enormous on him, baggy and excessive, he could probably wear it as a dress if he was ever so inclined. He _loved_ it.  
  
“Holy shit!” Ben exclaimed, leaning across the couch to grab Richie’s shoulder. “Look at this thing, this is _incredible_!”  
  
It took very little contest, really. Mike’s Black Santa garden gnome was a hit and a solid runner up, but Richie didn’t even care that he lost, was _proud_ to lose, because someone in this room had found the world’s most tacky, most beautiful, most _Richie_ Christmas gift, and by all the laws of the land and the game the winner was obvious.  
  
“It was me.”  
  
Oh, if only real-life came with a record-scratch soundtrack. Richie was pretty sure he heard one in his head anyway, heard all the sound cut out in a single heartbeat, just for a second, as everyone in the room looked visibly stunned by Eddie stepping up and raising a hand. Eddie. It was _Eddie_ that got Richie the best, most iconic, most thoughtful Christmas present anyone had ever given him.  
  
“Well shit,” Mike laughed, breaking the weird trance that had fallen over the group, “someone give the man his trophy.”  
  
The trophy was the second ever Christmas gift Richie had given Stan (Stan, sentimental fuck that he was, lied and told everyone that he lost the weird Santa and Friends Pez dispensers Richie had given him the first year, like Richie didn’t know they were all carefully lined up in the top drawer of Stan’s desk). Richie watched Bev, last year’s winner, pass the painted _When You Stop Believing in Santa You Get Underwear_ sign not to Eddie but to Bill, and felt a little bit like he was at the zoo. Like he was watching the room from behind a layer of glass suddenly, removed from himself as he tried to figure out what the _fuck_ just happened. Or maybe like he himself was the zoo animal, he wasn’t really sure anymore.  
  
Eddie. Eddie, who eleven months ago had kissed Richie until Richie thought he was going to die from it. Eddie, who turned on a dime and broke Richie’s fucking heart that same fucking day. Eddie, who next came back to Derry with a boyfriend and thought that everything would be _fine_ , that Richie would just roll with another fucking punch. Eddie, who was unflinching and callous with Richie’s feelings again and again and again, intentionally or otherwise. Who proved again and again and _again_ that he so obviously didn’t care about Richie.  
  
But this was a gift that took thought, and care, and probably time – no one would ever be so lucky as to just walk into a store and find this on the first try. Eddie had to put effort into this, had to really fucking try, and Richie knew that it wasn’t because of a competitive need to win. Eddie, he knew, had never even come close to winning the Secret Santa Exchange. Besides, he stood there watching Richie so anxiously, nervous and tentative as he waited for Richie’s reaction. Was it an olive branch? Did Richie _care_ if it was an olive branch? Could he accept it and move on, actually move on, pretend that last winter break never happened and just go back to when life was normal and Eddie Kaspbrak was one of Richie’s two _best_ friends?  
  
Not fucking likely.  
  
Richie held a hand out to Bill, who passed the painted wooden sign over without a word. They were waiting for him, he realized. Even Eddie was. Waiting to take a cue from how Richie reacted. Like Richie had _any damn clue_ how to react. He cleared his throat, put on his best Radio Show Host Voice, and fixed his eyes on a button halfway down Eddie’s shirt.  
  
“The 1995 winner of the Losers Club Annual Secret Santa Exchange, for the world’s most ridiculous and incredible Tacky Vacation Santa Hawaiian shirt is Mr. Edward Anthony Kaspbrak. Display your trophy with pride and honor, you earned it.”  
  
He held the trophy out, and it was only after Eddie had carefully taken it that they both looked up and met each other’s eyes.  
  
“Thanks,” Eddie said quietly. And Richie tried, okay? He fucking _tried_ to look sincere and calm and not at all like he was having an internal meltdown as he held Eddie’s gaze and nodded.  
  
“Yeah, you too _._ Thanks. _”_ Richie took a step back and held his arms wide out at his sides, spinning around so everyone could see him and plastering a grin on his face. “Have you assholes _seen this shit?_ Who’s got the camera set up, I’ve been practicing my gnome pose all day.”  
  
Deflect deflect deflect. Out of the corner of his eye Richie could see Ben looking at him, looking back and forth between Richie and a somewhat deflated Eddie. But Bev was stepping forward with a Polaroid and Mike was making room for the gnome on the coffee table and Stan was smiling for the first time since they’d gotten home and fine, Ben, okay. Richie counted on people not taking him seriously, shrugged off sincerity like he was allergic to it, literally and figuratively turned his back on Eddie. But Ben, sometimes that was just what it took.  
  
Richie was a loser, and a lover, but he wasn’t much of a fighter. He didn’t have a whole lot in the way of protection – sarcasm and wit and deflection. What he wanted to do more than anything else was fucking _rage_ at Eddie, honestly, but even at the height of his fury Richie didn’t really have it in him. Sorry, Ben. Those were Richie’s only options.  
  
Well. Those and two handles of rum in a barn on the outskirts of Derry, surrounded on all-sides by the best friends a person could ever ask for. Richie threw himself head-first into the party, moved with a frenetic energy through the little pockets of people, Mike and Bill and Eddie playing a card game, Bev dancing circles around Ben with her head thrown back and her cheeks red with laughter, Stan curled up in an armchair, isolated but watching the room with a small smile on his face. Richie loudly whispered lies to Mike about what cards Bill had, cut in between Ben and Bev and pulled Ben in to dance with him instead, winked and planted a kiss on both of their cheeks when Bev elbowed him out of her way. He plopped himself directly on Stan’s lap and poked increasingly louder, increasingly stupider jokes at him until Stan shuddered out a bone-deep sigh and let himself sink more comfortably into the chair, Richie still on his lap.  
  
Richie made the rounds, spent as much time as possible in all corners of the room, drank until they were all warm and soft and laughing, regrouping to pile together on the well-worn couches in one corner of the barn. The building used to be storage for the Hanlon family, and then it was nothing, empty and run down and useless, and then it became their unofficial home. They had a base in town in Bill’s garage, sure, but after they spent the better part of a summer cleaning out and patching up this place, scrounging together furniture and amenities and everything from Christmas lights to movie posters to throw rugs, the barn felt more like _theirs_ than anywhere else Richie had ever been.  
  
They had sleeping bags, but more often than not the sleeping arrangements were a free-for-all mess of throw pillows on the floor and bodies squished onto couches they were too big for, everyone dropping off like flies as they passed out wherever they’d landed when the night had finally started wearing down. Bill had taken over Stan’s recliner and was out cold across the length of it, Bev cuddled into the space between his body and the overstuffed arm of the chair. Mike was long-ways on the bigger of the two couches, Eddie on the smaller. Ben had made a nest on the floor but somehow fell asleep sitting up with his back against the couch – he’d have a monster of a crick in his neck come morning, but Richie knew from experience that it was better to let Ben sleep than to try to make him move. Stan was – Stan was gone, apparently. Richie heaved a small, nearly silent sigh and pushed himself unsteadily to his feet.  
  
“Where are you going?”  
  
Richie grimaced. He thought everyone else was asleep, that he’d been alone in laying on the floor staring at the rafters, but apparently he wasn’t.  
  
Apparently Eddie was too.  
  
“Check on Stan,” Richie mumbled.  
  
If Eddie had a response to that Richie didn’t hear it. Didn’t give him the chance, really – he crossed the room to the cracked-open barn door and slipped outside before Eddie could say anything.  
  
Stan wasn’t far. He sat just outside the door on a bench they’d put out there back when Richie and Bev chain smoked a lot harder, perched on the edge of the seat with his shoulders hunched around his ears and his hands in his coat pockets. He didn’t move as Richie sat down next to him, but Richie hadn’t really expected him to.  
  
They sat in silence for a little while. Richie shifted his weight until they were pressed together shoulder to hip, and Stan leaned into it just enough for Richie to know it was appreciated. They’d both been drinking, but neither enough to be too far gone, just enough that the edges of the world had gone a little soft around them. Richie leaned into his best friend’s warmth and watched the way the grass blurred in the faint wind.  
  
“There’s nothing to tell,” Stan said finally. He didn’t look at Richie, Richie didn’t look at him. “There’s nothing _wrong_ , not like that anyway. I just feel a little…”  
  
“Do you ever feel like you’re living split realities?” Richie asked after a long minute of Stan failing to find the right words. “Like, when you’re at college, home seems like this weird, distant memory from a whole lifetime ago, but when you’re back home again suddenly college seems like this elaborate dream you hallucinated.”  
  
Stan heaved a sigh that Richie felt in his own goddamn bones, full-body and deep, and Richie knew he got it right.  
  
“Yeah,” Stan agreed. “Yeah. It’s like the more time I spend away from here the less _real_ this place seems.”  
  
“It’s like leaving one place puts everything there on pause, and then you come back after how many weeks and months away and it all comes slamming back like ‘oh yeah, I remember this shit. For a minute there I forgot about all of this.’”  
  
“Patty called the other night to make sure I got home okay and Rich, I swear to God I forgot who she was for a second.”  
  
“I don’t think you’re allowed to swear to God,” Richie mused thoughtfully. Stan snorted, shoved his shoulder into Richie’s a little harder than necessary.  
  
“I think it’s just taking me a little bit longer to…re-acclimate to which reality I’m in,” he said, skating right over Richie’s comment, just like Richie knew he would. “Sorry for being a downer.”  
  
“Oh yeah, because you’re normally such an upper Stanley,” Richie rolled his eyes. “A real hype-man, that’s you. You’re not a fucking downer, dumbass. And even if you were we’d hate you all the same.”  
  
“You’re so uplifting,” Stan said drily. “Always here for pep talks.”  
  
“I’m all pep-talked out, I spent two hours yesterday trying to give Ben one only to have him turn it around on me. That’s my pep quota filled for at least the next year, I think. Getting a head start on ‘96.”  
  
“I’m definitely drunker than I thought I was,” Stan groused. “That just immediately conjured the mental image of you in a pep squad outfit following Ben around waving pom-poms at him. Now I need to bleach my brain _immediately_. _God_ I wish this reality wasn’t real.”  
  
“Oh my god, Stan you _hussy_ ,” Richie laughed. He wiggled one hand free of his pocket to poke Stan in the ribs, right where he was most ticklish. Stan made a noise dangerously like a _squeal_ and slapped at Richie’s hand – Richie was prepared, his right hand now wrapped around Stan’s back to poke him in the same exact spot on the other side. “Are you picturing me in a _skirt_ right now? Let me tell you, asshole, I have it on good authority that I look damn good in a skirt, you better be saving that little fantasy for your spank bank. If you’re really nice maybe I’ll ask Bev if I can borrow one, really give you a show.”  
  
It had taken the whole night – almost the whole week, really – but finally, _finally_ , Stan was laughing. Really, genuinely laughing, the exasperated but fond expression on his face that was almost exclusively reserved for Richie. He shoved Richie’s hand off but didn’t move out of his personal space, both of them still huddled together on the frozen bench. Laughing at the image of Richie in a Derry High School pep squad uniform, at the moment that reality clicked back into place despite the absurdity of it, at the whole goddamn world.  
  
“You guys are going to freeze your asses off out here.”  
  
Richie had taken his contacts out when they’d all started falling down for the count, back when he thought he was actually going to sleep too. He hadn’t bothered to put his glasses on before coming outside, didn’t think he needed them – what a flimsy excuse to squint at the silhouette that appeared just outside the barn door. Like he didn’t know Eddie’s voice.  
  
“Richie doesn’t have much of an ass to lose,” Stan said, a little giddily. “I know, I just saw it in a cheerleading skirt.”  
  
Richie _howled_ with laughter. Stan, for the first time since Richie sat down, glanced over at him and grinned. Ladies and Gentlemen, Stanley _fucking_ Uris.  
  
“Neither one of you can afford frostbite,” Eddie bit back. There was no humor in his voice – Eddie hated not being in on the joke, he always had, ever since they were kids. Said it made him feel like the joke was on _him_ , that they were making fun of him, but Richie always figured Eddie just didn’t like feeling left out.  
  
And actually, yeah, Eddie was kind of staring at the bench a little pointedly, as far as Richie could tell. It was a small bench, really more like a few pieces of spare wood nailed together and leaned up into place, but with some squishing together they could fit three grown ass men on it. Hell, the three of them specifically had sat there plenty of times before, Richie sandwiched in between two of his favorite people in the world. All he had to do was shift them over a little bit and there’d be room for Eddie to press in on either side, maybe share the blanket he was wrapped up in.  
  
Neither Richie nor Stan moved an inch. Richie had been _trying_ , okay? He’d been trying all night to be less angry, maybe a little nicer. Eddie had given him the greatest fucking Christmas present of all time, sure, and Richie really wanted to appreciate that, but it didn’t change the fact that Richie was _pissed_ at him. The kind of anger that had settled into his bones, sometime in the middle of last summer and soaked in deep enough by now that it would take more than just a night to shake it off.  
  
“We’re fine, man.” Stan said. The laughter had slipped out of his voice again, and Richie didn’t know if it was because Eddie had brought them back down or because Stan could feel the heavy weight of Richie’s tension.  
  
“Okay,” Eddie sighed, maybe nodded. He lingered in the doorway for another few seconds, just long enough to suggest that he wasn’t done talking. “Richie…”  
  
And Richie was just so _done_ with it. He was _tired_ of being so mad at Eddie, of feeling hurt and betrayed and heartbroken over Eddie, sick of feeling guilty and angry and frustrated whenever Eddie was around. Richie was in love with Eddie, Eddie didn’t feel the same way, and there was nothing Richie could do about that but accept it and get over it.  
  
But he still didn’t have to put himself through the agony of listening to Eddie try to explain his way back into Richie’s good graces until he was ready for it. No fucking thanks. Not even Richie was that much of a masochist.    
  
“No.” He said shortly. “You – no.”  
  
Eddie was quiet for a breath. Two. Stan held very, very still next to Richie, like maybe if he didn’t move they’d both forget he was there. Like Richie could forget how much he _needed_ Stan there, the only buffer between Richie’s slow burn anger and Eddie’s bullshit.  
  
“Okay,” Eddie breathed out finally. “Okay. Goodnight.”  
  
He shut the barn door behind him but not all the way, left it open just enough to leave a little bit of light from inside shining out onto them. Stan exhaled slowly, leaned into Richie a little bit.  
  
“Something happened, didn’t it? More than just Eddie coming home with a boyfriend, something happened with you guys.”  
  
Richie huffed out a sigh. _Something_. Yesterday, driving home from Portland with Ben, Richie had the whole story on the tip of his tongue. In a way Ben was the perfect person to tell – close enough to Richie and Eddie both to keep their secret, removed enough that he didn’t seem to have any sense of loyalty to one of them more than the other. He’d be unbiased and fair, he was a good listener, he was good at feelings – all the things Richie wasn’t.  
  
But he’d never actually gotten the words out. Maybe because he was so damn _tired_ of feeling like this, maybe because admitting it would feed the fire threatening the status quo. Maybe because he didn’t want to do that to Eddie, to try and unfairly sway one of _their_ friends to be on Richie’s side. And sure, Stan was already on Richie’s side, was _always_ on Richie’s side, but dammit. Richie was just so _tired_ of being _so angry_.  
  
“He figured out the world’s worst-kept secret,” he said finally. “And didn’t feel the same way.”  
  
“ _Shit_. I always thought…” Stan trailed off. He knocked his knee against Richie’s thigh, leaned just a little bit further into him. “Want me to kill him? I think I’d be pretty good at it, he’d never see it coming.”  
  
“You’re too pretty for jail, Stanny.” Richie reached one hand up to ruffle the mess that the wind had made of Stan’s curls, just for a second, before bracing his hand on the top of Stan’s head and pushing himself upright. “Come on, before he comes back out here and tries to force me to talk to him.”  
  
“Thank _god_.” Stan bounced to his feet way too easily for someone who’d been frozen on an uncomfortable slab of wood for the better part of an hour. “We’re good on feelings talk for like minimum six months, right? That conversation was _exhausting_.”  
  
There was a quality missing from Stan’s voice that would normally have been there – something that gave brevity to his jokes and levity to his teasing. He was still a little flat, still not entirely _Stan_ , but the sentiment was there. Richie threw an arm around Stan’s neck and pulled him in to plant a wet, smacking kiss right on the apple of his cheek.  
  
“At least a year. At _least_ ,” Richie agreed. “But if you’re still in an open-minded mood I was thinking, overhearing us having sex would probably make Eddie _really_ jealous – ”  
  
“I hate you,” Stan groused, but he didn’t duck out from under Richie’s arm. Richie squeezed tighter, just for a second, before loosening his grip just enough to give them both room to walk inside.  
  
“I love you too, man. Love you, too.”

 

* * *

_Your actions formed an open sore, left to fester;  
_ _I won't be bored with anymore of your empty gestures.  
_

* * *

  
There is a playlist for  _Winterbreak_  - if you'd like to listen to the whole thing all at once, you can find it [here](https://open.spotify.com/user/1239648869/playlist/3pS5XQu7CkeCfp33mD5zeE?si=4ejxt-_tQ9qTSHiu177vrw). If you'd like to listen chapter by chapter, the chapter 2 playlist is [here](https://open.spotify.com/user/1239648869/playlist/7pQ0FcC8StFjCAyiydLOgO?si=5UAfZXf_SLGwJCoqBJoV6Q). I'm mostly a lurker on tumblr these days, but if you'd like to pick my brain about my very firm and utterly baseless headcanons about Richie Tozier you can find me [here](http://thegloryof.tumblr.com/). 


	3. Sophomore and Junior Year

**Chapter 3 – Sophomore and Junior Year  
**_I’ve Got a Dark Alley and a Bad Idea That Says You Should Shut Your Mouth – Fall Out Boy_  
**  
**

* * *

**  
**_Spring Break_ **  
  
  
  
**Richie wasn’t really sure how he’d gotten there.  
  
Well okay, he knew how he got to Chicago – a routine phone call from Bev, a joke that festered into an idea, an idea that grew into an overly expensive twentieth birthday present from his parents, into roundtrip airfare. He even technically knew how he got to the party they’d been at – Bev’s sorority paired up with a frat for an end-of-midterms mixer. A fraternity pledge had shuttled a car-full of them over from Bev’s house, and Richie had been greeted at the door by the nicest dude-bro he’d ever met, a slap on the back, and Solo cup full of beer.  
  
But he wasn’t sure how he’d gotten _here_ , flat on his back on Beverly’s bedroom floor, flopping one arm at her like a dying fish. There were shots involved, he thought. Probably, definitely shots involved.  
  
“Did I black out?” He frowned, flapped his hand a few more times against the scratchy carpet. “Hey Bev. Bevvv. I don’t feel like I blacked out?”  
  
“You didn’t,” Bev’s voice floated down from somewhere above him – Richie cracked an eye open and discovered that he was, in fact, halfway under her bed. “You fell asleep.”  
  
And that...yeah, that actually checked out. Richie had left Geneseo at stupid o’clock in the morning, and between getting a ride to the airport, two layovers, and the weird time difference it had still taken him the better part of the day to get to Chicago. He’d tried to rally for the party, he really had...but yeah, he vaguely remembered stumbling into a dark bedroom and letting himself fall face-first onto an uncomfortable couch.  
  
“Nooo,” Richie whined softly. “That’s worse. Your friends are gonna think I’m _lame_.”  
  
“Psht,” Bev scoffed. “They’re all half in love with you. You’re a _radio deejay_ , that’s _so cool_ , you bought your vintage flannel at a thrift store, that’s _so cool_ , your hair and your glasses and wow you’re soo tall you’re sooo cool.”  
  
She was teasing him, he could hear the grin in her voice. She’d laughed for five minutes straight when he’d stumbled out of the airport in a faded Queen t-shirt he’d stolen from his dad and a flannel that he had, in fact, bought for $0.75 at Salvo. But Richie didn’t care, he knew he looked good. He didn’t care, but that didn’t stop him from balling up his flannel and throwing it blindly up onto the bed.  
  
“I was talking about your fratty dudes, obviously,” he said, rolling out from under the bed and wobbling carefully to his feet. He might not have blacked out, but that didn’t change the fact that he was definitely fucking _drunk_.  
  
“So was I,” Bev said with a snort. “They’re like two days away from trying to recruit you.”  
  
“Hey, tell them to make me an offer I can’t refuse. I’ll move out here, Chicago sounds like as good a city as any to set up a permanent address.”  
  
Bev’s bed was lofted just high enough that Richie couldn’t fall _down_ onto it, but rather had to flop slightly upward. He did so with about as much grace as a three-legged giraffe, too tired and lazy and still drunk enough that he didn’t have a single spare fuck to give.  
  
“You’d miss the WGSU.” Bev very helpfully grabbed Richie’s t-shirt and pulled, like she wasn’t just as drunk and silly as he was.  
  
“Whoa, Chicago doesn’t have radios!?” He was three-quarters on the bed, that had to be good enough. He could kick his shoes off, wiggle out of his jeans, call it a night. Yup. Solid plan.  
  
“You’d miss being close enough to drive home.”  
  
“I’d have you!” Richie heard the faint thud of his Chucks hitting the floor, truly an unmitigated success. “Who needs those losers when I got my girl?”  
  
“You’d lose it the first time Stan told you he was going home for a long weekend and you couldn’t drive back to see him. And Bill wouldn’t be able to just hop on a bus and come visit whenever he wanted.”  
  
Bev was still teasing him – Richie rolled his eyes at her, which was probably a bad move considering he was also trying to flip himself over onto his back. Ooh yeah, his stomach was turning over a little bit too much for his liking. He’d wait on the jeans, maybe. Revisit the idea of taking them off once his whole body stopped rebelling.   
  
“You make it home plenty, we’d be fine. We could make them all come visit.”  
  
They were joking, obviously. Richie loved Geneseo way too much to want to be anywhere else, even if it was the same city as one of his best friends.  
  
But still, he thought about it sometimes. About up and leaving Derry, about what it would mean, about what it would change, about what would happen. They were only sophomores, sure, but eventually it was going to happen. Eventually Richie was going to leave them all behind, or they were going to leave each other, and they’d have to put actual effort into seeing each other. Into keeping in touch. And for some of them it would be easy – Stan would be Richie’s best friend no matter where they were on the entirety of planet earth, goddammit – but for all of them? Could their friendship take it, being scattered to the wind permanently like that, without a shared place anchoring them all home?  
  
He’d thought a lot about the conversation he and Stan had a few months back, about how distant his two realities seemed depending on where he was. If Richie spent all his time away from Derry, would he eventually forget about it entirely? Would he forget his friends? Would he forget…  
  
“Eddie’s not getting on a plane anytime soon, you’d definitely never see him again.”  
  
Bev. Always a mind-reader just when Richie _least_ wanted her to be one.  
  
“ _Fuck_ Eddie,” Richie grumbled.  
  
“Yeah, that too,” Bev snorted. “Wouldn’t living in Chicago make it a little hard to pull that off? Wasn’t that like, the ultimate college goal?”  
  
“Yeah,” Richie said bitterly. Man, like thirty seconds ago he was too drunk and stupid to get his jeans off, now he’d give anything for the distraction of another shot to make his head swim. “Sure was. Lure Eddie into the delusional belief that I’m funny and charming and fun. Convince him to fall in love with me. Roll around in bed as many times as possible before he gets sick of me.”  
  
“Rich…” Bev said softly.  
  
Richie didn’t talk about his feelings for Eddie, positive or negative. It was the worst kept secret in all of the world, sure, but an unspoken one. Richie didn’t talk about it, didn’t acknowledge it beyond his own jokes that _he_ controlled the levity of. But even those had disintegrated into the nebulous unspoken tension around Richie and Eddie and Richie-and-Eddie.  
  
“Yeah, I don’t think that’s gonna happen,” he said shortly. “Just a hunch. Pretty sure you have to actually be _talking_ to someone before you can seduce them.”  
  
“You and Eddie aren’t…” Bev frowned again, Richie could hear it. He rolled his head to the side just enough to see the thoughtful look on her face as she slowly started pushing pieces together. “Holy shit, when was the last time you two talked to each other?”  
  
“Dunno, the Christmas party?”  
  
“The Christmas…” Bev sat up, looked down at Richie with wide eyes. “It’s March! You haven’t talked to Eddie in three months?”  
  
“Technically, yes,” Richie mumbled. He was having a tough time looking at her – it was doing something to the hard layer of anger still settled under his skin. It felt smaller under Beverly’s scrutiny, maybe. Not quite as rigid, a little more flexible. But still _there_. He was still undeniably _angry_.  
  
“Richie! He’s your best friend! Talk to him!”  
  
“Oh yeah, sure,” Richie rolled his eyes again (regretted it again), looked up at Bev from under a raised eyebrow. “I’ll just give him a call real quick. ‘What’s up Kaspbrak, just wanted to see if you were still a raging dick. You suck, good talk, see you in May.”  
  
“Call him.” She said it like a challenge, and Richie knew it was because she didn’t understand what was wrong. Bev thought Richie was being stubborn, that Richie was being a little bit of an ass, that Eddie and Richie were caught in a stalemate of their own making, like they had been so many times before. She had no idea, would never in a million years encourage Richie to call Eddie if she knew the carefully cultivated silence between them was the only thing saving Richie from another crack in his wounded heart.  
  
But still. Maybe it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. Like, maybe it would do something good for Richie, just this once, to actually speak his mind. Now, with alcohol making him pliant and Bev curled next to him, with the anger he’d been living with tempered into something just a little bit more forgiving.  
  
“Yeah, okay.” Richie sat up carefully, considered the phone on Bev’s nightstand. “Yeah. I’m gonna call him.”  
  
“Wait, _now_? It’s 3am in New York and you’re drunk off your ass. Are you – beep beep, Richie!”  
  
But Richie didn’t care even if Bev thought it was a horrible idea. He already had the phone receiver in one hand, pinpointed Eddie’s number on the neat list taped to the wall next to it. Yeah, he was going to fucking do it. He had no idea what the fuck he was going to say – he was going to give Eddie a piece of his mind, tell Eddie how much he _sucked,_ how much Eddie had fucked him over, how much he fucking –  
  
“H’llo?”  
  
God Richie _ached_ with how much he missed Eddie. He never knew there were so many ways you could miss a person, but goddammit he did, he missed Eddie so fucking much. So much that his tongue suddenly felt too big in his too-dry mouth, that he couldn’t even begin to pry the words from his lips – what words, even? Richie could feel Bev’s eyes on him, could hear Eddie saying hello again, a heavy question mark in the dead air between them, but he just – _fuck.  
  
_He exhaled sharply, a harsh burst of air that rattled the receiver slightly. It echoed down the line, louder even to Richie’s ears than it really should have been, and Richie should definitely hang up the phone. Fuck. Yeah. Hang up the –  
  
“Richie?”  
  
Eddie sounded breathless. Hesitant. Richie was so sick of this tentative version of Eddie, sick of being responsible for the way Eddie suddenly edged cautiously around him. They used to barrel headlong into each other without a second thought – they used to trust each other to be there to meet the other halfway. It was Richie’s fault that Eddie moved so tentatively in Richie’s presence, that Eddie held his tongue even now, even as the lengthening silence all but answered his question.  
  
“I hope you’re having a good time in Chicago,” Eddie said quietly. “Tell Bev I said hi.” He waited a couple seconds. A couple more.  
  
Richie held his breath.  
  
“I miss you too, Rich.”  
  
Goddammit, Richie was so _tired_.  
  
He placed the phone gently back into the receiver without saying a word. He didn’t let himself think about the fact that he hadn’t heard the telltale click of Eddie hanging up, about the fact that Eddie could still see through him like he was made of glass, about the fact that Eddie was a thousand miles and two months away, and that nothing had actually _changed_. Fuck. _Fuck_ , Richie was sick and _tired_ of feeling like this.  
  
He glanced over at Bev, who was looking at him with her blue eyes blown wide, the fingers of one hand pressed delicately over her lips. She looked slightly as bad as he felt, staring at him with just a fraction of understanding.  
  
“What _happened_?” she breathed.  
  
Richie shrugged.  
  
“Richie…” Beverly’s eyes swam with tears. “I’m sorry.”  
  
Richie just shrugged again. He didn’t think he could speak right now, honestly. Trashmouth Tozier, radio personality, king of not being able to keep his damn mouth shut, notorious shit-talker, bearer of bad jokes. At a loss for words.  
  
Bev was still looking at him, soft and concerned, and Richie felt something break under the weight of her pity. He felt it in the way his face crumpled, in the way Bev reached forward and pulled him into her, lowered them both down carefully. He felt it as he curled in on himself, wrapped tightly in Bev’s arms and finally, _finally_ fucking cried – for everything he’d once had and everything he’d lost – for the first time since last winter break.

 

_Summer Break_  
  


Richie slammed his car door shut a little harder than necessary, dropping his head down onto the top of the steering wheel. _Get a summer job at Blockbuster_ , he thought viciously. _It’ll be easy! Fun! Everyone likes movies!  
  
_He took a few deep, careful breaths before tightening his grip on the steering wheel and pushing himself upright again. It hadn’t even been that bad of a shift, really. Last week a woman had ripped Richie a new asshole for not properly warning her that _Jurassic Park_ was too scary for her six-year-old, despite the fact that Richie hadn’t actually been working when she checked it out. Nobody had yelled at him today.  
  
But honestly, maybe if they had the shift wouldn’t have been so bad. At least someone yelling at him would have meant that there were actual _customers_ in the store, not Richie sitting listless and alone for the overwhelming majority of a six-hour shift. VHS intake only took so much brain power, re-alphabetizing shelves took even less. Idle hands might be the Devil’s playthings, but Richie Tozier’s idle brain was the Marianas Trench – the longer he went unchecked the deeper down he dove.  
  
Richie started his car with a muted sigh. Mid-morning he’d been desperate for some company, banking on the idea that after work he could drive out to Mike’s or swing by the junkyard and visit Ben, but now that he’d dug himself so deep into this funk he didn’t even want to go home, just in case his mom happened to be in a chatty mood. No, Richie needed quiet, needed space, needed Stan to come back from visiting his stupid girlfriend so Richie could mope around the Uris house instead of his own.  
  
He was halfway there before he even realized where he was going. Pulled his car off to the side of the road a block away from the path that ran deep into the woods and shucked off his itchy, oversized Blockbuster polo without hesitation, eyed his black work pants thoughtfully. It was hot as balls out there, and if Richie got dirt on these pants he’d have to wash them before work tomorrow night, and the odds of him running into another human being were like, negative zero. He threw his pants into the backseat of his car too, trudged out into the tree line in boxers and a sweaty, kind of grimy white t-shirt, and followed the path he used to know by heart.  
  
God, they used to come out here all the time, didn’t they? Summers before things like part-time jobs and off-season practices were a necessary evil, when they could afford to do nothing all day but run shrieking into the water, building dams and makeshift clubhouses and the foundations of the best friendships Richie would ever have in his life. Shit, they spent _hours_ , probably _days_ of their lives chasing each other through the tall grass and off the edges of cliffs, making up elaborate games and doing the best they could with what they had.  
  
Here was where Bev had pulled off a delicate little dress and Richie first fully appreciated the magic of a girl in her bra and underwear. Here was where Eddie had tackled Richie into the dirt and Richie first felt his stomach drop to his feet under the weight of Eddie’s lithe body. There was where, deep into their annual talk about feelings, Stan had confessed that he was sixteen-years-old and never been kissed. Where Richie poked him in the ribs until Stan was laughing and then nudged him into an uncharacteristically gentle press of lips, because Richie would be damned before he let his best friend feel inadequate.  
  
Richie poked his toes at a soft-looking patch of grass near one of his favorite spots. The rocks he’d used to perch on looked so much smaller now, not nearly comfortable enough to drape himself across, but the ground wasn’t too hard and the grass not too dry. Richie threw himself down on the dirt and let his limbs sprawl where they landed, tugged his glasses off his face and let the world go soft and out of focus while he stared unseeingly at the sky above his head.  
  
It wasn’t like his life had changed _that_ much since they were kids. Sure, they’d moved the party to places like Mike’s barn or Bill’s garage, but the guest list hadn’t changed. Richie would still bend over backwards to make Stan laugh, would still follow Bill to the ends of the earth and would never turn down one of Ben’s ridiculous but brilliant ideas. The sight of Beverly half-dressed might not make Richie’s heart race anymore, but the pulse-pounding instinct to keep her safe (or to hold her things while she protected her own damn self) never went away.  
  
Eddie still took Richie’s breath away. Richie was man enough to admit that, at least. Eddie Kaspbrak might be an asshole that broke Richie’s fucking heart, but goddammit he was still beautiful.  
  
He’d been...trying. Richie had been trying, although technically it was true to say Eddie had been trying too. But he’d come home at the beginning of the summer and just… he couldn’t shake off that stupid phone call over spring break. Had played it over and over on an endless loop for the rest of the semester – the hitch in his own breath that echoed down the line, the quiet thread of hope in Eddie’s voice. That Eddie had known it was him, because even a year of vitriolic animosity couldn’t change the fact that they _knew_ each other.    
  
And Richie was just. He was so _tired_. So fucking tired of hating Eddie, of missing Eddie. Tired of making Eddie pay for what, really, wasn’t entirely his fault. Tired of putting their best friends in the shitty, completely unenviable position of standing as a buffer between the two of them. So fine, they weren’t magical rekindled best friends overnight – and yeah, they probably never would be. Richie and Eddie would never be Richie-and-Eddie the way they used to be, not ever again. But at least Richie could walk into a room and greet Eddie with the same smarmy flash of a grin that he greeted everyone else with. He could sit at the same diner booth and not ignore the side of the table Eddie was on.  
  
They were never going to be friends again. Richie was never going to stop wanting what he couldn’t have. Richie was never going to fully be able to suppress the little bubble of resentment in him, never going to be able to look at Eddie and not lose his breath at the sight. But Richie could, at least, stop being such an enormous dick about it.  
  
There was a snap, a crack, the crunch of feet against a rock bed, and for a second Richie forgot. Forgot that he was twenty years old and 6’3”, that bullies hadn’t been a problem since he was fourteen and that Richie had a pretty sizeable advantage over most of the people in this town. He shoved his glasses back on his face and sat bolt upright, just in time to watch Bill Denbrough step through the tree line and do a double take at Richie.  
  
“Jesus fuck, Big Bill,” Richie sighed, slumping all the way back down to the ground beneath him. “You scared the ever-fucking shit out of me.”  
  
“Pretty sure the phrase is ever-loving,” Bill said.  
  
“Sure it is,” Richie said. He lay back with his eyes closed as Bill moved closer, listened to the shift and sound as Bill settled into the grass an arm’s length away from where Richie was sprawled. “Except here we are, all alone in the middle of the woods, and I’m _just saying_ Billy-boy I’ve always wondered about that talented mouth of yours, so ever- _fucking_ – ”  
  
“Oh my god, _beep beep_ , Rich,” Bill laughed.  
  
Richie smirked, just a little bit, up at the sky.  
  
“What are you doing out here, I thought you were working today?”  
  
“I was.” Richie shrugged half-heartedly, turned a rock over with idly-moving fingers. “Got cut as soon as the afternoon shift came in. Wasn’t really in the mood for people, so…”  
  
“Oh,” Bill’s weight shifted, Richie opened his eyes just in time to see Bill moving to push himself to his feet.  
  
“Sit down, dumbass,” Richie snapped out and caught Bill’s arm. “You’re not _people.”  
  
_Bill grinned, charming and genuine, and settled back down into the grass. Like he didn’t _know_.  
  
Richie’s friends were the best friends he could ask for in life, probably the best friends he would ever have. He loved them individually, he loved them all together. He would do anything for any single one of them – he’d die for them, he’d live forever with them, he’d kill for them. But somehow or another, over the course of time, his friendships with each of them had taken on different forms. Stan was his brother – even when they snarked and bickered and fought they loved each other fiercely, never went more than a few days without the other. Mike was his anchor, the voice of reason and the rock and the lighthouse that Richie looked to when he felt too far out to sea. Bev was his mirror, each with their own demons, their own insights, perfectly capable of spiraling away from each other only to rein the other back in and deliver a healthy dose of reality.  
  
Bill, Richie sometimes thought, was the purest of all his friendships. Richie relied on Mike for strength and Bev for sanity and Ben for emotional balance, but Bill was just...Bill. Richie relied on Bill for the pleasure of his company, no more and no less. Bill was their de facto leader, sure, but Richie didn’t need that from him. He didn’t need anything from Bill – he spent time with Bill solely because he wanted to, because they genuinely had _fun_ together.  
  
Silence, lazy and heavy in the August heat, settled around them. Not between them – it wasn’t tense or oppressive, just comfortable. Just the two of them, nostalgic and complacent, broken-down lions stretched in a lazy sprawl across their own savannah. Being out at the Barrens alone has been nice, had been relaxing, but being out here with Bill soothed something Richie hadn’t even realized was aching. He couldn’t _remember_ the last time he’d been lulled into this sense of calm, this kind of contentment – so blissed out in the sun-kissed afternoon that he didn’t even move when, for the second time that day, footsteps cracked through the clearing.  
  
Bill did.  
  
“Sh-sh-shit!” he stuttered out, like he only ever did when he was _freaking the fuck out_. “F-fuck, Rich, I told him I’d buh-be here and – shit!”  
  
“Dude,” Richie said cautiously, “chill, what the – ” and Richie lifted his head up, reaching half-heartedly out toward Bill, just in time to watch Eddie stop dead at the sight of him.  
  
Richie let his head flop back down onto the ground beneath him, careful not to brain himself on a rock. Honestly, he should have known.  
  
“Hey, man,” he said wearily. “How’s it hanging?”  
  
“Sweaty and a little bit to the left today.”  
  
Richie barked out a laugh, delighted and genuine. Holy shit, he missed Eddie.  
  
“You hear that?” Richie used his still half-outstretched arm to smack Bill’s shoulder lightly. “Eddie just got off a pretty fucking good one. Come on Kaspbrak,” he rolled his head to the other side, glanced up at Eddie, “pull up some grass, you’re blocking my sun.”  
  
“Ah yeah, that’s what your pasty ass needs,” Bill nodded. There was still something a little wary in his voice but, for the moment, he seemed content to follow Richie’s lead and act like nothing about this was painfully awkward. “A nice sunburn for you to bitch about for the next week.”  
  
“You seem awfully concerned about my ass, Big Bill. Are you reconsidering my previous –  ”  
  
“Beep beep, Rich,” Bill said warningly.  
  
He was right. It was probably weird to joke about hooking up with a friend when, gingerly settling to the ground on the other side of Bill, Eddie was a living, breathing example of how monumentally disastrous hooking up with a friend could be.  
  
“Can you really blame him?” Eddie somehow managed to sound tentative and sly at the same time, wading out into unfamiliar territory. Not _unfamiliar_ , they’d been here a thousand times before. Territory that hadn’t been breached in a long, long time. “You’re definitely looking pretty hot right now.”  
  
“Oh my god,” Bill groaned, covering his red face with his hands. “We’re all _hot_ right now, it’s a hundred degrees out.”  
  
“But you, my dear Billiam,” Richie reached over and tugged at the sleeve of Bill’s t-shirt. “I’ve been waiting for you to take this off for like _hours_.”  
  
Bill swatted Richie’s hand away like a persistent fly, even as he laughed. It didn’t break the tension, low and humming around them, unavoidable but tolerable. Richie didn’t expect to be able to joke his way out of this one, really, but he’d never been one to turn down a good challenge. Fake it ‘til you make it, if you will.  
  
“Fine,” he sighed dramatically. “Be boring. Eddie, wake me up if Bill starts stripping.”  
  
He managed to say it without a single drop of attitude, light and pleasant with a teasing little lilt to his voice. Hell, even Eddie’s name had sounded totally normal. Sun-drenched and lethargic, sunk comfortably into the soft grass, Richie was entirely too content to summon his usual spite.  
  
Richie hadn’t actually meant to fall asleep, and he didn’t, not quite. But the sun was warm and there was the illusion of a cool breeze off the water. Bill and Eddie kept up a quiet murmur of conversation that, as Richie drifted lazily through the afternoon, faded into a comforting background hum. He let himself hover on the edge of consciousness, blissfully and vaguely aware that _this_ was exactly what he needed. He’d even go so far as to say he couldn’t have asked for better company, better friends to sit and be alone with, to anchor him to the real world as he let himself float for a little while.  
  
The t-shirt landing directly on his face came as something of a surprise. Startled him into consciousness, at the very least. Richie sat bolt upright and grabbed a handful of slightly damp cotton right as Bill went streaking by – streaking, literally streaking, stripped down to his skin as he threw himself into the water.  
  
“ _Damn_ , who knew Big Bill was going to be such an appropriate nickname!” Richie yelled, laughing when Bill couldn’t seem to decide between preening and flipping him off. Richie glanced sideways at Eddie as he flung Bill’s shirt away. He considered his own for a moment – definitely on the wrong side of grimy now, and decidedly damp in all the least appealing places – but…he looked at Eddie again.  
  
He was going to try casual with Eddie. He could do that slightly fake, conspiratorial friendliness, like when you’re trying too hard to include an outsider. But he could _not_ , under any circumstances, strip down to just his boxers while Eddie was sitting just a few scant feet away.  
  
“Weren’t you supposed to wake me up?” Richie said lightly. He settled back down until he was propped up on his elbows, t-shirt still firmly on.  
  
“Who do you think threw that at you?” Eddie smirked just slightly, a faint, fragile thing. “Bill actually thought he was going to sneak by without you noticing.”  
  
“As if,” Richie scoffed. “Good lookin’ out man, I’ll forgive you for interrupting my nap.”  
  
“You literally asked for it.” Eddie never really needed to roll his eyes, he could do it with his tone alone. “And you weren’t asleep.”  
  
“Says who?” Richie challenged. He fished around on the ground around him until his hand closed on his glasses, shifted all his weight onto his right arm so he could shove them onto his face. _All the better to see you properly with, Eddie my dear.  
  
_“You snore.”  
  
“I do _not!”  
  
__“_ You do too.”  
  
“How would you know?” Richie blurted out, completely unthinking. He wanted to eat the words out of the air between them, grab them back and stuff them into his ridiculous trash mouth.  
  
He could feel, just a little bit, the fragile truce between them cracking like thin ice. He didn’t want to break it, wanted to bask for a little bit longer in the comfortable afternoon, wanted to linger a little bit more in the luxury of getting to actually look at Eddie without the weight of both their anger.  
  
But maybe Eddie did too. Maybe Eddie just wanted to appreciate Richie’s tentative civility, or maybe he didn’t want to push his luck. Either way he just raised an eyebrow at Richie, let the smirk grow a little bit wider on his lips.  
  
Dammit, Richie still wanted to kiss those stupid smirking lips.  
  
“Yup…” he trailed off, nodding at the unspoken judgment in Eddie’s expression. Except it wasn’t, really. Eddie was looking at him, waiting for him, ready to follow Richie’s lead. He didn’t look judge-y at all, actually – he looked a little amused, a little fond, a little apprehensive. Uncharacteristically patient.  
  
Eddie was sat on the grass with his feet planted flat in front of him, knees bent at a loose angle, arms behind his back with his weight braced on the palms of his hands. It was hot enough that the hair at the nape of his neck had curled, deep enough into the summer that the sun had coaxed that Italian coloring into his skin. Richie lost himself in the thought of his own pale hands spread across Eddie’s golden chest, cupped against his sun-kissed jaw.  
  
_Dammit_.  
  
“Rich,” Eddie said gently.  
  
It wasn’t a precursor to anything. Wasn’t a lead-in to a conversation Richie still didn’t want to have, wasn’t a plea or a promise or a warning. It was just Eddie, reading Richie the way he always could, nudging Richie carefully away from a downward thought-spiral. Richie blinked and lifted his chin, caught Eddie’s eyes. He let himself get hit with it, the punch to the gut that Eddie was _so fucking beautiful_. Let it roll over him, just for a second, until he could finally tear his eyes away and nod. Nod because he was snapped out of his reverie, and nod because he’d made up his mind without even realizing he was trying to decide.  
  
He missed Eddie. Eddie wasn’t going anywhere, not anytime soon at least. And no, they were never going to be the same and no, Richie was never going to stop wanting things to be different...but he thought maybe he could at least work with what they had. Maybe this tentative _something_ – not quite friends but not open animosity anymore either – was better than indefinite nothingness.    
  
“Okay.” He flipped himself over onto his hands and knees, grabbed Bill’s discarded shirt and shoved upright. “I’m giving you a choice. One, we join the little mermaid over there and pretend it’s not weird that we’re all way too old to be seeing each other’s junk like that.”  
  
Eddie, Richie knew, wouldn’t have gone skinny dipping for all the money in the First National Bank of Derry.  
  
“Or…”  
  
“Or,” Richie took the two steps that separated them before he could overthink his decision, before he could remember that he was angry and hurt and bitter, that staying away from Eddie was the best plan possible. “We steal Bill’s clothes and make a run for it. My car’s like a mile tops, all we need is a good head start.”  
  
He held his empty hand out to Eddie. Eddie didn’t hesitate – he reached out and grabbed Bill’s jeans with one hand, reached up and clasped Richie’s wrist with the other. Richie pulled Eddie upright, and they wasted a single, precious second standing toe to toe with matching shit-eating grins. For the first time in a year and a half Richie thought that maybe, _maybe_ , things were going to be okay.  
  
Eddie’s eyes went wide, and Richie didn’t need to ask. He shifted his grip on Eddie’s hand and tugged him around seconds before Bill came splashing out of the water.  
  
“I WILL KILL YOU, TOZIER.”  
  
Richie cackled, even as he ran. Even as he looked back over his shoulder to see Bill butt-ass naked and sprinting after them. Richie cackled, and Bill yelled some astoundingly creative threats after them, and Richie laughed so hard he thought he was going to die as Bill full-on rugby-tackled the pair of them into the dirt.  
  
Eddie never let go of Richie’s hand.

 

_Thanksgiving Break_  
  
  
  
Richie wasn’t _moping_ , no matter what his mom had said as she kicked him out of the house at 8am the Monday before Thanksgiving. He was _not_ sulking, not as he stomped to his car in sweatpants and a holey sweater, beanie pulled low over his greasy hair and glasses sliding down the bridge of his nose. Absolutely not bitching to himself as he drove through the empty streets of Derry.  
  
It wasn’t _Richie’s_ fault that he didn’t have any Monday classes this semester, and that his Tuesday afternoon professor had cancelled class for the week. It had been a month since Richie had shown up for his Tuesday morning class – a dry U.S. Government 101 lecture that fulfilled a graduation requirement but at the brutal cost of Richie’s eternal boredom. It had sounded so _appealing_ to drive home a few days early, to get to spend a whole week bumming around with his friends and stuffing his face with turkey, it hadn’t even _occurred_ to him that he would be the first one home until he was halfway there.  
  
That had been Saturday. Mrs. Tozier suffered a record-breaking 36 hours of his low-grade whining (fine, okay, he’d been whining) before strongly encouraging him to _find something constructive to do, for the love of God, Richie, or I will use_ you _as the turkey stuffing._  
  
But it was eight in the morning on a Monday, where in the hell-pit that was Derry fucking Maine was Richie going to find something _constructive_ to do? He didn’t need _constructive_ , or _grounding_ , or _structure_ , he needed a musty couch in Bill’s garage, squished between Stan and Bev and complaining that they were both way too skinny to provide any real body heat.  
  
But Stan wasn’t coming home until Wednesday, and Bev wasn’t coming home at _all_. And Bill was...Bill was…  
  
Richie didn’t actually know when Bill was coming home, but he knew who would. He climbed out of his mindless stupor enough to put some intentional direction into his driving...except, oh. He was already on the way to Mike’s house. Way to go, autopilot.  
  
Mike was their gatekeeper. It hadn’t necessarily been discussed, or planned, just evolved and settled into an obvious routine. It made sense that any time any of them made plans to come home they’d tell the one person who was always in Derry. Mike _wanted_ to know, would’ve been hurt beyond words if anyone had come home without telling him. And sometimes the weekends would coincide without anyone else even realizing it – their first fall apart Bill and Stan almost went a whole weekend without knowing the other was home before Mike realized they hadn’t talked to each other. So they always told Mike when they were coming home, and Mike always kept track of it all.  
  
Richie had told Mike he was coming home Sunday. Not to _lie_ , necessarily, just to give himself a 24-hour window to sleep off the drive and the culture shock. Mike probably knew it was a lie anyway, he always seemed to know when Richie was lying. Richie loved him a little bit extra for it – there weren’t a lot of people in the world that saw through Richie like Mike did. Mike had probably known Richie was coming home on Saturday, that he’d be a complete shut-in Sunday, that he’d show up cranky and early on Monday morning.  
  
And sure enough, Mike was waiting for him, standing at the end of the driveway with his arms crossed over his chest and a truly bad attempt at a stern expression on his face. His lips kept twitching up into a smile that Richie could see before he even threw his car into park and flung himself out the door, a smile that Mike wasn’t even trying to fight anymore by the time Richie wrapped him up in a hug.  
  
“Michael Michael Michael,” Richie crowed, almost directly into Mike’s ear. “It’s so good to see you, you beautiful man, c’mere lemme feel those arms.”  
  
Mike laughed, technically complied by squeezing Richie tighter.  
  
“It’s good to see you, Rich,” Mike said as he pulled away. “It’s been _months_.”  
  
“Aw, is that why you were waiting for me?” Richie teased. “Be honest, you been standing out here since last night?”  
  
Mike shoved Richie’s shoulder as they walked back to the car, just in time to send them both in opposite directions. Richie was halfway toward protesting when he realized Mike had pushed him toward the passenger’s side but – well, it was a fair judgment call. Richie wasn’t a bad driver by any stretch of the imagination, but Mike’s driveway was tough to navigate even when Richie was at his best. This, the crack of _dawn_ , was certainly not Richie at his best.  
  
“I saw you turn down the road,” Mike answered, sliding into the driver’s seat. “There’s a fence post down out there, I need to replace it.”  
  
“Ooh, want help?” Richie was great at replacing fence posts. Well. Richie was great at holding fence posts still while Mike dug them in. Fine, Richie was great at watching Mike’s arm muscles flex in a too-small white t-shirt as _he_ replaced them. He was excellent at moral support.  
  
“Tempting,” Mike said wryly. “It’s not urgent, I’ll do it later. I figured you’d want breakfast when you got here, so I’m _starving_.”  
  
“Bet you could probably eat a cow right now, yeah?”  
  
Richie, of course, never turned down the opportunity to make a good farm joke. Mike, bless him, had never even once tried to kill him for it. Mike was a good friend.  
  
“Just for that you’re cooking,” Mike sighed.  
  
“Like I wasn’t already,” Richie shot back. “Or did someone teach you how to boil water since I left?”  
  
Mike was the gatekeeper and the rock and the group dad and arguably the best person among them. He was their lighthouse and he had never met a tool he couldn’t use or an animal – humans included – that he couldn’t befriend. The Hanlon family turned out the best meat in town, there wasn’t a restaurant in Derry that wasn’t supplied by this farm, and Mike kept it all chugging along like a well-oiled machine, from delivery to delivery.  
  
But Mike, poor sweet Mike, couldn’t cook to save his life.  
  
They bickered amiably through the winding drive back to the house, in the loving, familiar kind of way that peppered snark and important life-updates equally throughout the conversation. Richie had deferred his major declaration and now had two weeks left to decide, Mike was considering getting a part time job at the library while the farm slowed down for the winter. Richie slept with the same girl three times in the same week and she took that to mean they were dating, Mike went on an _actual_ date with a girl who skipped out on the bill and then didn’t return his calls (Richie, obviously, was going to find this girl and _eviscerate her_ as soon as Beverly got home). Richie gamely restrained himself from bringing up anyone else, waited until they were settled at the counter in the bright, well-worn kitchen, Mike passing Richie eggs one at a time.  
  
“I’ve never been the first one home before,” he said casually, cracking another egg into the deep-dish plate in front of him. “We’re good on eggs, gimme that fork and get the bread ready. It’s nice to have you all to myself, Mikey.”  
  
“Please,” Mike rolled his eyes good-naturedly, passed Richie the fork. “Tomorrow can _not_ get here soon enough, I already need reinforcements.”  
  
“I’m going to drop your french toast on the floor,” Richie threatened, whisking the plate of eggs together carefully. “Who’s coming home tomorrow?”  
  
“Bill’s taking an early train to Portland, then a bus out here, should be in around two o’clock.” Mike hovered carefully as Richie dipped the first slice of bread into the egg yolks, apparently taking Richie’s threat all too seriously. “Ben’s flight gets in early Wednesday morning, any chance you’re free to go pick him up?”  
  
“You do this part, it’s not hard.” Richie moved the prepped slice of bread to the waiting frying pan, watched Mike gingerly slide a second slice into the egg yolk.  
  
“You already told him I’d pick him up,” Richie guessed. He squinted suspiciously at Mike, who focused intently on the bread, before adding slowly, “Stan’s flight also gets in early Wednesday morning.”  
  
“They’re on the same flight.” Mike glanced up from the egg bath looking positively _gleeful_ , it would’ve been ridiculous if it wasn’t so fucking endearing. “I don’t think they know. Ben’s first layover is in Atlanta, he and Stan are getting on the same flight to New York and then another flight up to Portland. Is this one ready?”  
  
Richie flipped the bread in the frying pan before handing the spatula over, fully ready to watch Mike drop everything.  
  
“I’m guessing they won’t figure it out until New York, but wouldn’t it be cool if they were sitting next to each other?” Mike continued, balancing his bread so, _so_ carefully on the end of the spatula. “It’s like, serendipity.”  
  
“It’s too bad Bev’s not coming,” Richie added. He could only stand still for so long – he reached out and eased the spatula gingerly out of Mike’s hand. “Imagine all three of them on a flight together. Bev would probably try to fight some poor unsuspecting soul for the seat next to Ben.”  
  
“You think she’s figured it out yet?” Mike asked.  
  
“What, that he’s in love with her? Or that she’s in love with him?” Richie shrugged, poked pointlessly at the hash browns on the backburner. “How many slices do you want?”  
  
“Three to start.” Mike handed over the third, turned sideways to face Richie before moving on to the next piece of bread. “You think she’s in love with him?”  
  
“You don’t?”  
  
“Of course I do,” Mike shrugged. “I just didn’t think anyone else noticed yet.”  
  
“They definitely haven’t,” Richie agreed. He flipped the french toast, mixed around the hashbrowns. Ignored the weight of Mike’s eyes on the side of his face. “I don’t think she’s figured it out yet either, no.”  
  
“Seems to be a lot of that going on around here.”  
  
Richie sighed. He fidgeted with the hashbrowns, spun handle of the frying pan back and forth and back again for good measure. _Why_ , why, did his good-for-nothing friends always try to corner him when he was making food? He should stop cooking for them, he really should.  
  
“ _Fuck_ , fine, spit it out.” He dropped the third slice of french toast onto a waiting plate, spooned an overly aggressive serving of hashbrowns on the side, and shoved the whole thing at Mike. “Go sit down and eat these while they’re hot, then tell me that Eddie’s not coming home for Thanksgiving.”  
  
“Eddie’s _not_ coming home for Thanksgiving, but that wasn’t what I was going to say.” Mike took the plate obediently and carried it over to the table as Richie went to work on his own breakfast.  
  
Richie had meant it to be flippant, really. And sure, yeah, he and Eddie were on better terms these days. Not _better_ better – when summer ended it was still awkward and weird and a little painful, they still tripped over sticky moments, were still just a little too polite, a little too tentative around each other to actually be comfortable. Richie hadn’t actually thought about the possibility that Eddie wouldn’t come home for Thanksgiving, but if he had then he probably would have expected to be relieved for the chance to avoid all the fuss for a couple of days, to spend a few nights with his friends without having to be weird about it.  
  
He didn’t expect the disappointment settling into the pit of his stomach. He was disappointed that Eddie wasn’t coming home, that it would be another three weeks before he’d learn if their newfound truce was still holding up.  
  
He didn’t really love the reminder that, for all that things were starting to be okay between them, they still weren’t really _friends_. Two years ago Richie would’ve been the first to know that Eddie wasn’t coming home, Eddie would’ve called him before he called anybody else. Two years ago Richie would’ve offered to drive down to Staten Island and pick Eddie up himself, if that was the problem, or crash some awkward family dinner Mrs. Kaspbrak had weaseled them into at a cousin’s cousin’s house. Two years ago Eddie would’ve let him.  
  
Things were _better_. They were. They just weren’t the same. Richie was working on getting over that.  
  
Mike let him mull it over in silence, ate his breakfast quietly as Richie fried up a couple of slices of french toast for himself. They both let the kitchen fill with the sound of the skillet sizzling and the click of utensils against plates, until they’d both put away three helpings each of hashbrowns and thick slices of french toast, until Richie was slumped lazily in his seat and Mike was eyeing what Richie suspected was his fourth cup of coffee.  
  
Mike lulled Richie into a false sense of security, that’s what he did.  
  
“You remember that night right before you guys went back for your spring semesters, freshman year? The Denbroughs were out of town and we all went to Bill’s and got just totally _bombed_?”  
  
“I try not to,” Richie said warily. It was a true enough answer. One that anyone else would’ve read as a comment on how much they all drank, on how sloppy they were, on how weird it felt to strain for the missing fragments of your memory. Mike should’ve laughed and agreed, said something back about how dumb they all were, knowing full well they were all likely to drink just as much this upcoming weekend, this time right here in Mike’s barn.  
  
But Mike was Mike, and Mike wasn’t bringing up that party just to shoot the shit about their underage drinking.  
  
Richie eyed the kitchen door speculatively. It wasn’t too late to make a run for it.  
  
“Yeah, I don’t think anyone really remembers all that much,” Mike laughed, a short, hoarse little sound that he didn’t really mean. “I have these little bits and pieces, like some b-list romantic comedy montage, you know?”  
  
“Something like that,” Richie shrugged. He remembered the party with a little too much clarity. He’d like to remember a little _less_. It was what happened _after_ , really, that Richie had found a few too many holes in.  
  
“I remember you and Eddie,” Mike continued quietly. “I remember you guys in the kitchen, Eddie all over you. I remember you two leaving together, even though we were all supposed to be spending the night.”  
  
“When _didn’t_ Eddie and I leave a party together?” Richie argued feebly.  
  
“You haven’t since that night,” Mike shot back. “Not once. And besides, there’s leaving together and there’s leaving _together_. You guys left parties together all the time, but I never saw Eddie drag you out the door like he couldn’t get you home fast enough.”  
  
_Take me home, Rich_.  
  
Richie shook his head – shook off the ghost of Eddie’s lips against his ear, shook off the accusations Mike hadn’t even made yet.  
  
“I don’t know what…” Richie trailed off. _What you’re talking about. What you want me to say. What you think happened. What I’m supposed to do now._  
  
“Everybody knows you guys aren’t okay,” Mike said gently. “Of course we know. But I don’t think anyone else noticed you guys that night, or would even remember if they did. I don’t think anyone else is going to put it together, that party and you heading back to school early, the fact that you two barely talk anymore. But Rich, it’s been two years.”  
  
Mike reached across the table, let his hand fall just short of grabbing Richie’s. Supportive, without being pushy. Just like Mike. “It’s been two years, and you’re clearly not okay with it. So I just...I don’t know, I thought I’d ask. Do you want to talk about it?”  
  
Richie looked down. At Mike’s hand, calloused fingertips light on the tabletop just inches from his own. At Mike, expression so carefully neutral, so unable to mask his earnest concern. He felt the layers in between him and that party, the hurt and the anger and the exhaustion, and now a fresh coat of disappointment.  
  
“Yeah,” he said hoarsely. Cleared his throat, looked up and met Mike’s eyes. “Yeah, okay.”

 

* * *

_Please put the doctor on the phone, cause I'm not making any sense.  
Blame everyone but me for this mess;   
_ _and my back has been breaking from this heavy heart.  
_ _We never seemed so far._

* * *

  
There is a playlist for  _Winterbreak_  - if you'd like to listen to the whole thing all at once, you can find it [here](https://open.spotify.com/user/1239648869/playlist/3pS5XQu7CkeCfp33mD5zeE?si=4ejxt-_tQ9qTSHiu177vrw). If you'd like to listen chapter by chapter, the chapter 3 playlist is [here](https://open.spotify.com/user/1239648869/playlist/44sEBnMu04o2Ve7qQlykin?si=_e_36vlSRuOFD6pXc3l-sQ). I'm mostly a lurker on tumblr these days, but if you'd like to pick my brain about my very firm and utterly baseless headcanons about Richie Tozier you can find me [here](http://thegloryof.tumblr.com/). 


	4. Winter Break, Freshman Year & Junior Year

**Chapter 4 – Winter Break, Freshman Year** _  
You in January – The Wonder Years_

* * *

  
  
It wasn’t supposed to get so wild. It was _supposed_ to be just pizza and movies and beer and a last night together before they all went back to school. Bev even called in for a while, just long enough to pass the phone around to each of the boys and tell them how much she missed them, how dead they’d be if they didn’t call her during the semester.  
  
At first that was all it had been – Richie in his usual place in the corner of Bill’s couch, one arm braced on the armrest and one leg propped up on the coffee table, a plate of half-eaten pizza in his lap. Stan on the floor in front of him, wedged into the space between the back of the couch and Richie’s leg, and Mike to his right. It was comfortable and familiar and exactly how he wanted to spend his last weekend in Derry, and Richie took a long sip of his beer and thought he wouldn’t trade that night for anything.  
  
And then Eddie walked into the living room, three plates of pizza and four beers balanced precariously in his hands, and glared at what _used to be_ his spot on the couch, where Mike and Ben had somehow sprawled out to fill in all the empty space.  
  
“Well that’s just _rude_ ,” Eddie snapped, though there was no heat in it. “Considering I got up to get you assholes refills.”  
  
“Don’t worry Eds, I saved a seat for you right here,” Richie laughed, patting his lap.  
  
Eddie glowered at him, and Richie laughed harder. Or at least, he did until Eddie placed the plates and drinks onto the coffee table, climbed nimbly over Mike and Stan, and dropped down onto the couch. He wasn’t _exactly_ in Richie’s lap, not completely, but Eddie squirmed into the spare bit of space between Richie and Mike until there was _just_ enough room for him between them. It left him flush against Richie, pressed together from shoulder to hip to knee, and left Richie staring a little bug-eyed at the smug look on Eddie’s face.  
  
“Wow, is that all it takes to shut you up?” Eddie snickered. He leaned forward across Mike, who was also laughing, that traitor, and snagged two of the fresh beers off the coffee table. “Here,” he held one out to Richie, “you look like you need it.”  
  
Richie wouldn’t be beat at his own game. No, not the game he’d been at for years, the lone player in the one-sided quest to flirt his way into Eddie’s pants. He finished what was left of his beer and placed the empty bottle on the floor before reaching forward to accept the one Eddie offered him.  
  
“Thanks babe,” he said warmly, catching Eddie’s eye and giving him the best Bedroom Eyes look he’d learned in his first semester at school. It usually worked – hell, it had even worked on Eddie before, even if the resulting effect had just been Eddie flushing red and losing track of his words.  
  
But that night all Eddie did was hold Richie’s gaze steadily, a smile Richie had never seen before teasing the edges of Eddie’s lips, and Richie was at a loss. Eddie _never_ responded to him, Eddie shoved him off and told him to shut his trash mouth and glared him into quelling submission, Eddie didn’t smile coyly and lean into Richie’s stupid flirting. And then Eddie actually _did_ lean in – or back, rather, settling back into the couch behind him in a way that, really, resulted in him settling back into _Richie_. Leaned back so that his shoulder was pressed across Richie’s chest, one elbow at Richie’s hip and his arm draped across Richie’s thigh, and he had _never_. Eddie had _never_.  
  
Richie swallowed another gulp of beer and tried not to move. Tried not to dislodge Eddie, afraid that it was an accident, that if Eddie realized how much of them was touching he’d move away. But Eddie just sighed, squirmed around a little in a way that only pressed them _closer_ together, and glanced over his shoulder to give Richie a Look.  
  
“Move your arm,” he demanded, “it’s going to go numb like that.”  
  
Eddie was right, Richie’s fingers were already starting to get a little tingly in the hand squished between Eddie’s back and the couch. But the only place to _move_ his arm was around Eddie, and despite _years_ of throwing his arm over Eddie’s shoulder at every available opportunity, something about that felt...different.  
  
Richie wormed his arm free and draped it loosely over Eddie’s shoulder, and Eddie settled back into the crook of Richie’s arm with a contented sound.  
  
Across the room, in an armchair perpendicular to the couch, Bill made a noise like a whip crack. The rest of the boys cackled, even Eddie, and Richie couldn’t do much more than whack at Mike’s arm with his hand and nudge Stan’s face with his thigh. Shockingly, it didn’t shut them up.  
  
“When Eddie says jump, do you wait until before or after you’re already airborne to ask how high?” Mike teased, just as the laughter started to die down.  
  
“Neither,” Richie said promptly, “I usually just get on my knees.”  
  
The rest of them _howled_ , even though Eddie turned around and gave Richie a look that Richie couldn’t quite place. Eddie leaned in and opened his mouth, and despite knowing better Richie couldn’t help but tilt his head down to meet him.  
  
“So you’re saying,” Eddie said quietly, so quietly that the rest of them probably couldn’t hear as they continued to tease Richie, “that all I have to do is ask?”  
  
They were in an alternate universe. That was the only explanation – they were in an alternate universe, where Eddie flirted back and Eddie said things that left Richie speechless and Eddie curled into Richie’s side during movie nights with the boys and none of that was actually _happening_. Not for real.  
  
Eddie smiled again, a slow, victorious thing, and pulled away to add loudly, to the delight of the rest of the room, “he’s a pain in the ass, but he’s useful.”  
  
Richie, somewhat vaguely, wondered what was happening. He didn’t care. If Eddie wanted to play ball Richie certainly wasn’t going to stop him – he’d give it back just as good as he got, kid gloves off, game face on.  
  
“Man, one of these days Eddie is going to kill you,” Stan said mildly, pinching Richie’s calf gently.  
  
Richie glanced down at the body draped contentedly across his, at the fluff of Eddie’s hair that blocked half the TV screen, at the fingers that were decidedly _not_ his own but were still fussing absently with a fraying piece of his jeans.  
  
“Stan, you have no idea,” Richie sighed. In front of him, Eddie grinned.  
  
And that was just the beginning.  
  
It was _supposed_ to be just a low-key movie night, but of course, none of them were very good at sticking to a plan. So when they ran out of beer halfway through the second movie and Bill pulled out a handle of rum…well. Then Ben pulled out a pack of cards and taught them a game he’d learned at school. Eddie mixed them all a second round of drinks. Stan suggested Bill couldn’t possibly chug a whole cup – Bill obviously did, and Richie too, because he’d never let Bill drink alone.  
  
It was all downhill from there, really.  
  
But if things were getting a little ridiculous, Richie didn’t really notice. He was far too distracted by Eddie, who seemed far too distracted by _him_. Richie and Eddie were always a little bit of The Richie-and-Eddie Show, playing to the room by playing off each other, an effortless back and forth between them. Feelings aside – and Richie had a _lot_ of feelings where Eddie was concerned, loathe as he was to admit it – Eddie was one of Richie’s best friends. Eddie and Stan, those were his _people_ , that was an indisputable fact, and even when all of them were together it was generally a given that Richie would spend most of his night with one or both of them.  
  
But _that night_...there was a difference. There was something _different_ in the air, in the room, in the way Eddie was with him. Eddie didn’t just get roped into Richie’s fooling around or thrown into the seat next to him by default and habit. Eddie sought him out. Eddie came to _him_. Eddie left to use the bathroom, came back and sat on the couch so close to Richie their thighs were touching, even though there was a whole empty seat at the other end. Eddie leaned into him, cheeks flushed and eyes sparkling, to mutter sharp, teasing comments about the game of Kings they were still half-heartedly playing. Eddie fell forward when he laughed – actually _laughed_ , didn’t just roll his eyes and hide a smile – at Richie’s jokes, curled into Richie’s body until he could brace his head on Richie’s shoulder and laughed.  
  
Richie thought maybe he was dreaming. It would explain why he was on _fire_. It would explain the hazy flare to the lights in the room – dreaming, or feverish. Imagining everything, or hallucinating it. Because this was...if Richie had been back at school, sprawled across the corner of a shitty third-hand couch in a frat house basement with a guy or a girl curled into his side the way Eddie was, Richie would have known what that meant. Richie would turn down the jokes, just a little, and turn up the charm. Richie would lean forward when they did, not for a kiss but just to tease, just a little, the idea of one. Richie would slip an arm around Eddie’s hips and trace his fingers over the bare stretch of skin where his shirt had ridden up, would brush his lips against the shell of Eddie’s ear as he murmured teasing little asides about their friends. He’d go home with them, whoever they were – he had before, on nights not so different from this one, and he probably would again.  
  
But this was _Eddie_. _Eddie_ , who Richie had been flirting with since before he even fully understood what flirting _was_ , or why one would do it. _Eddie_ , who Richie threw himself at constantly, in every way he possibly could, for _years_. Who was sassy and wry and as sharp as Richie even on his worst days, who took whatever Richie flung at him and gave it back twice as good, who loved nothing more than to roll his eyes and smirk at Richie’s flirting but never actually flirted _back_. But Eddie wasn’t just humoring him, Eddie was...Eddie was...  
  
Richie thought maybe he was dying. It seemed more likely than the alternative.  
  
“Rich,” Stan yelled, from the incredibly far distance of four feet away, just on the other side of the coffee table. “Rich, Bill thinks he can beat you at arm wrestling.”  
  
“Bill plays football,” Richie called back. He wasn’t even looking at Stan – Eddie had immediately shifted his attention to Richie’s arm, was shoving the sleeve of Richie’s t-shirt higher up his bicep with a rather handsy drag of his fingers. Richie wasn’t even sure if Stan was still in the room – he felt Eddie’s fingers on him like a brand.  
  
“Bill thinks _I_ can beat you at arm wrestling,” Stan added gleefully.  
  
_That_ got Richie’s attention. Sort of. He caught Eddie’s eye, watched the amusement bloom across Eddie’s face, everything slower through the cloud of alcohol muddling their blood. Eddie smirked just a little, more of a challenge than Stan’s drunk yelling, and Richie couldn’t turn away from that. He eased himself out from under Eddie – he hadn’t noticed how much they’d been _touching_ , fuck – and plopped down on the floor across from Stan, positioning himself in front of the coffee table that Bill and Ben were hastily clearing of cups.  
  
Richie won. This surprised approximately no one except Bill – Stan was hardly the limp noodle bullies had always assumed he was, but between the two of them Richie had always had more energy to burn, energy he spent running winding laps through his neighborhood and doing push-ups and sit ups until he lost count.  
  
Plus, Richie fought dirty. They were too old and too close for Stan to get grossed out by Richie licking his hand, but he’d never be too old to shriek reflexively and jerk away when Richie reached out a free hand and tickled the sole of Stan’s sock-covered foot.  
  
But a win was a win, no matter what Bill protested dramatically, and Richie was fully ready to revel in it. He turned back to the couch, where he _knew_ Eddie had been just a moment before, his calf casually pressed against Richie’s side, only to find it empty. Eddie was gone.  
  
There was a rematch – one Richie couldn’t avoid, one that involved referees and “impartial” judges and absolutely no cheating on Richie’s part. Richie won it anyway, just like both he and Stan knew he would, but it didn’t _really_ matter...Eddie still hadn’t come back. And what was the _point_ in blatantly showing off any kind of physical prowess if there wasn’t somebody around to impress?  
  
So, Richie kept his gloating to a minimum, weaseled his way out of a ‘best three out of five’ challenge by suggesting _Bill_ arm wrestle Stan, if he was so keen on it, and waited until his friends were distracted before slipping quietly out of the living room. There was a chance Eddie had gone to the bathroom, sure, but...Richie knew him. There were a limited number of things in the world that would lure drunk Eddie out of a room full of his best friends.  
  
And sure enough, Richie walked into the kitchen to find Eddie perched on top of the counter, a lukewarm slice of pizza in hand. He looked smug and self-satisfied and fucking adorable, honestly, and for a second there Richie thought he might burst from just the sheer amount of affection he felt for the stupid, beautiful boy in front of him.  
  
“I knew you’d find me,” Eddie said slyly, smirking around another bite of pizza.  
  
“I haven’t a clue what you’re on about, my good sir,” Richie sniffed, proper and British and coy, “I’ve only come in search of a refresher.” He held up his empty cup like a talisman, steered himself toward the fridge instead of following the magnetic pull that always led him straight to Eddie.  
  
“Uh huh,” Eddie snorted.  
  
Richie filled his cup with more rum than he needed, splashed the Coke a little too excessively, too focused on giving himself a second to breathe. He didn’t remember making the decision, somewhere between the living room and the kitchen, to see where this _thing_ with Alternate Universe Eddie was leading, but...but apparently he had. He poured himself a new drink, mixed it thoroughly, and took a nice, bracing sip before turning back around again.  
  
Eddie was watching him openly, no small amount of interest in his expression as he continued to chew quietly.  
  
“What is that, like your fifth slice?” Richie said teasingly, nodding slightly at the pizza. Eddie was generally fastidious about his health, even after years of breaking away from his mother’s obsession. He ate well, indulged rarely and in small doses, exercised regularly, hydrated thoroughly. He wasn’t a stick in the mud about it – Eddie was a pain in the ass plenty, sure, but not about things that actually _mattered_ – but it was a constant Richie had grown used to over high school.  
  
Drunk Eddie, though. Drunk Eddie _lived_ for junk food. Drunk Richie _lived_ to tease him for it.  
  
“Sixth,” Eddie said smugly, taking another bite as Richie crossed the room toward him. “Took you _ages_ to come in here.”  
  
“I had to kick Stan’s ass a second time,” Richie shrugged. “It was really tough work, I think I earned a bite of that as reward.” He made a playful but half-hearted grab at Eddie’s slice of pizza – Eddie didn’t _share_ , not food. Lingering germaphobia, or just a purely selfish desire to enjoy every last bite, Richie was never really sure.  
  
Which was why his mouth fell open, just slightly, when Eddie held the slice out toward him.  
  
“Just one,” Eddie said solemnly, “and only because you won.”  
  
He held the pizza out in way that made it clear Richie was supposed to take a bite – not just take the slice from him, but bite straight from the proffered hand. In all the years they had known each other, all the years they’d been friends, Eddie had fucking _never_.  
  
“What a prize,” Richie murmured, leaning forward and letting Eddie guide the pizza neatly into his mouth. It put him oddly close to Eddie – Richie was practically standing between Eddie’s spread legs, close enough that he didn’t have to stretch to place his drink on the counter next to Eddie’s hip.  
  
“Shame you didn’t challenge someone other than Stan,” Eddie teased. “Imagine what the prize would have been for beating _Mike_.”  
  
“It’s not too late to go back in there and try again,” Richie shrugged. He watched Eddie drop the last little bit of pizza on the counter next to his thigh, reach behind him to grab a napkin and wipe the grease from his fingers. He wondered what Eddie would do if he took those fingers and licked them clean himself. He used to think he knew what Eddie would do...but now...now…  
  
“Nah,” Eddie said quietly. He shifted his weight, hooked one foot around the back of Richie’s thigh, just enough to keep him in place. “I like you right here.”  
  
“Yeah?” Richie’s breath hitched slightly. He felt so _wrongfooted_ , felt like he’d stepped into his life and everything had been moved just one inch to the left. He reached for his drink, mostly just for something to do with his hands, and was close enough in Eddie’s space that his wrist dragged over the rough denim over Eddie’s hip.  
  
“You know me,” Eddie’s tone was playful, still teasing. “Always keeping an eye on you. All the better to keep you out of trouble.”  
  
“I think you just like the view,” Richie teased back.  
  
Eddie reached forward and took Richie’s drink from his hand, lifted it to his own mouth and took a sip before putting it back on the counter. Eddie didn’t share drinks. Richie didn’t do a very good job at not staring openly.  
  
“Let’s be honest,” Eddie shrugged. “If I was going to catch something from you I would have done it by now. Pretty sure I’m immune.”  
  
“To me?” Richie scoffed. He leaned in slightly, planted his hands on the counter on either side of Eddie’s thighs. “No one’s immune to me, I’m all charm.”  
  
“You mean you’re the _plague_ ,” Eddie laughed. But he leaned into it too, just slightly, just enough. It put them eye level with each other, and close – so close. Close enough that it would be so _easy_ for Richie to just keep moving forward, to bridge that small, small space between them and press their lips together. He could almost _taste_ it, pizza and rum and Coke and Eddie – he dropped his eyes to Eddie’s mouth and watched Eddie drag his teeth across his bottom lip. Nervous? Contemplative? In anticipation?  
  
“You guys just missed the greatest upset of all time!”  
  
Richie jumped, straightened up and away from Eddie. He twisted around to watch Mike stumble through the kitchen doorway, but if Mike noticed anything weird about the scene he’d walked in on he didn’t say anything about it.  
  
“Stan beat Bill,” he said instead, laughing a little. “It was _nuts_ , I think Bill might not ever recover.”  
  
“He did _not_ ,” Richie gasped exaggeratedly. He tried to take a surreptitious step in Mike’s direction, but there was a small tug on the back of his shirt, a foot hooked around the front of his thigh. Richie was very gently pinned, leaned back against the counter with Eddie right behind him, thighs pressed lightly to either side of Richie’s hips.  
  
Okay, so they weren’t playing it cool. Fine, fine, Richie could roll with this. Richie could absolutely carry on a conversation with Mike while Eddie sat behind him, trailing one hand brazenly down his arm. They were totally casual, Richie settling back into Eddie, bracing his arms on Eddie’s thighs and feeling Eddie shift forward into him. Mike was cool, he wouldn’t call them out on how _insanely fucking out of character_ this was.  
  
“He did, it was,” Ben joined in, a little louder than was necessary for the small kitchen, the only sign that he’d been drinking too. “I can’t believe you guys didn’t hear the –”  
  
“KISS MY ASS BILL DENBROUGH YOU CAN’T DEFEAT ME.”  
  
There was a sharp, vicious thwap followed by a heavy thud – Richie winced, grimaced slightly at Ben and Mike. Eddie reached an arm around Richie’s, wordlessly handing over Richie’s half-empty drink.  
  
“Bill hit Stan in the face with a pillow,” Mike reported delightedly, from his vantage point of actually being able to _see_ the living room.  
  
“Should somebody maybe check on them?” Richie asked cautiously.  
  
Richie knew, beyond a shred of doubt, that if Stan walked into the kitchen this weird, surreal bubble he and Eddie were in would burst. Stan would take one look at them and _know_ , and Richie and Stan had always been a little too honest with each other. Stan would tell him that it wasn’t real, Stan would remind him that whatever was happening right now was some bizarre alternate reality fluke, and Richie would know he was right, and he just...couldn’t.  
  
And for a second he could _swear_ that Eddie could read his mind. Eddie went a little tense, just a little, and leaned forward into Richie. He waited until Mike and Ben were distracted – their backs turned as they yelled into the living room toward where Stan and Bill were mostly definitely beating the shit out of each other with couch pillows – before hooking his chin over Richie’s shoulder and bringing his mouth close to Richie’s ear.  
  
“You want to get out of here?”  
  
Richie fumbled his drink. The plastic cup crashed to the floor, rum and Coke splashing out everywhere. Mike and Ben turned back around at the sound, both of them looking caught somewhere between judge-y and amused as they looked between him and the spilled drink.  
  
“Man, I thought Bill was sloppy,” Ben teased.  
  
“What, you think he got drunk alone?” Eddie scoffed.  
  
Normally that would be true. While Stan was his best friend and Eddie was his partner in crime, Bill was Richie’s go-to for a good time. Maybe it was because they genuinely had fun together, maybe because they fueled each other on just enough to be entertaining but still knew where to draw the line, maybe it was just because they were the two headstrong reckless messes of the group. Whatever it was, normally if Bill was blackout drunk Richie was right there with him.  
  
But tonight there had been Eddie. It was a lot harder to see it as a good idea to follow Bill into the kitchen for another round when it meant having to pull away from the warmth of Eddie half-curled on top of him. So while Richie was _drunk_ – they all were, they were so fucking drunk, way too drunk for a casual night at Bill’s house – that didn’t explain the drink splattered across his feet.  
  
And Eddie knew it. Even as he and Mike and Ben laughed Eddie was back to trailing a hand up Richie’s arm, on the side where Mike and Ben couldn’t see. He traced his fingers up over the ball of Richie’s shoulder, over the ridges and hem of Richie’s t-shirt collar, onto the smooth, sensitive skin at the back of Richie’s neck.  
  
“Okay!” Richie said loudly – too loudly, but since they all thought he was wasted anyway nobody seemed to notice. And then came another crash from the living room, and nobody noticed that Richie stooped down to pick up his cup, that Eddie tossed him a towel with a smug grin on his face and hopped down from the counter only after Richie had mopped up the puddle on the floor.  
  
Nobody noticed Richie was on _fire_. Not physically, and not really metaphorically either, but like. Richie was burning from the inside out. He blazed a haphazard path through the kitchen back into the living room – where Bill now had a red-faced Stan pinned, shoving a pillow into his face in a way that probably could’ve killed him if they both weren’t laughing too hard to really try. Nobody noticed Richie moving somewhat dazedly to grab his coat, to yell a belated goodbye back into the room where, somehow, Mike and Ben had joined the fray. Nobody noticed Eddie trailing after him, self-satisfaction positively _radiating_ off of him as he followed Richie from room to room to door. Nobody noticed them leave, nobody noticed Eddie slam the door behind them with a laugh, take off after Richie and launch himself up onto Richie’s back with no warning.  
  
Richie didn’t know _why_ tonight was different, _why_ Eddie was coy and coquettish, why the Richie-and-Eddie show had shifted scripts so rapidly, so dramatically. He was _burning_ with wanting to know, with not daring to ask, with hoping for _something_ , with begging for anything. He didn’t _know_ , he didn’t _understand_ , but he’d wanted and wanted and wanted for so _fucking long_ that he sure as shit wasn’t going to stop Eddie now.    
  
Richie put Eddie down only when he physically couldn’t carry him anymore – Eddie didn’t seem to mind. He entertained himself instead by walking down the center of the road, trying to use the yellow dividing line as a guide to keep him straight – he broke into shrill giggles every time he veered off course, like the brazen flirt from the kitchen had disappeared again, morphed into someone playful and young. But that was Richie’s favorite of all Eddie’s drunk personalities, the Eddie that forgot to school his face stern and sarcastic, that forgot to filter himself, that smiled wide enough to crinkle the corners of his eyes and laughed at Richie’s stupid jokes. The Eddie that used road lines as tightropes, that blindly reached out to the side to grab at Richie’s hand for balance.  
  
Richie jumped forward like he was launching himself onto Eddie’s tightrope, miraculously landed as planned with his feet one by one on the thin yellow line, toes pointed toward Eddie.  
  
Eddie laughed again, loud and bright in the cold, crisp air, great exhalations of breath that puffed out in clouds around his head. He didn’t let go of Richie’s hand, stood still and held tight as Richie adjusted his balance. They stood nearly toe-to-toe, eighteen years old but still mirror images of their third-grade selves on the school yard balance beam, looking at each other long after the sound of Eddie’s laughter faded out from the night around them.  
  
Richie stared at Eddie. January in Maine was unforgiving; the flush from Bill’s balmy kitchen had faded in the cold, replaced by two splotchy red patches where the wind bit at Eddie’s cheeks. The ends of his hair curled out from under the brim of a knit hat pulled all the way down to his eyebrows – Richie’s hat, a beanie he’d pulled out of his pocket and thrown at Eddie hours before, when Eddie was still sober and sharp and had bitched about the cold for half the walk over to Bill’s house. It looked better on Eddie than it ever had on Richie, Richie should let him keep it. Bring it back to New York with him, where it apparently still got cold, just “not as cold as this piece of shit town five miles south of the goddamn Arctic tundra.”  
  
Eddie blinked at him with warm brown eyes, the corners squinting in as a smile spread slow and sweet across his face. Like he knew every thought in Richie’s head right now, even though Richie himself could barely make sense of the mumbled, half-formed chaos.  
  
“You’re so fucking cute, Eds,” Richie marveled. It came out a little too genuine, softened by alcohol and bone-deep fondness and the cloudless January sky above them. A more sober Richie would’ve made a desperate grab to bite them back, would’ve been uncomfortably aware that he might have just given too much away.  
  
And sure enough Eddie’s eyes widened, like Richie had taken him by surprise, like he hadn’t called Eddie cute a thousand times before.  
  
“You actually mean that, don’t you?”  
  
Eddie was still holding Richie’s hand. Not lightly, either – he held it up between them like their hands were the cornerstones keeping them both balanced on the line. Neither of them had moved, barely a step apart, Eddie staring at Richie with something like wonder on his face.  
  
“I’ve always meant it,” Richie said hotly, fueled by indignation and alcohol, burning on the heat of Eddie’s hand. He could still feel Eddie’s lips on his earlobe, feel Eddie’s fingers on his neck, and Eddie thought Richie _didn’t_ _mean it_? “Look at you, you’re fucking adorable, how could I not mean it?”  
  
“You never really did anything about it,” Eddie shrugged, but he was grinning again. Grinning and yanking on Richie’s hand, tugging him in with a sharp twist and pull. Richie stumbled forward, fell off the tightrope and landed with his feet on either side of Eddie’s, caught himself with his free hand on Eddie’s shoulder.  
  
Eddie still hadn’t let go of Richie’s other hand, just twisted their arms down so their hands were now pinned between their thighs. They were so close, _too fucking close_ , and Richie didn’t know anymore if he was _way too fucking drunk_ or _way too sober_ , but Eddie was sliding his free hand up Richie’s chest, under his coat, and grinning up at Richie looking entirely too smug and entirely too smart, and everything was just _too_.  
  
Eddie’s lips were hot against Richie’s, a shock of warm and soft and smooth in the frigid night air. His lips were hot, and the fingers he pressed against Richie’s jaw were ice, and the sting of both together set Richie gasping, and that was when it hit him. That was when he fisted his hand in the shoulder of Eddie’s coat, unlocked their fingers and wrapped his arm around Eddie’s waist, pulled them both flush together and let Eddie tear him apart with a kiss. Eddie’s lips were fire and Richie was _burning burning burning_ and holy shit he didn’t know what was happening or why but he _never wanted it to stop_.  
  
“Take me home, Rich,” Eddie repeated, a hair’s breadth away from Richie’s mouth. “Don’t make me ask again.”  
  
It took effort to untangle themselves, but they managed. It became a blurry montage of movements and moments – Richie grabbing Eddie’s hand and practically running down the street, Eddie threading their fingers together and keeping up, just as eager, just as fast. Their slightly hysterical laughter the only sound in the 2:00am silence. Eddie pressing Richie up against the Tozier’s front door for another long, filthy kiss before Richie could even get his keys in the lock, Richie practically tripping up the stairs to his bedroom, Eddie’s hand searing a hole through Richie’s skin as he tugged Richie up behind him.  
  
Their clothes landed everywhere. Coats in a crumpled heap, shoes kicked against the wall. Eddie laughed when Richie got tangled in his own shirt sleeves, Richie retaliated by pulling Eddie’s sweater up painstakingly slowly, letting his frozen fingertips drag up every divot and curve of Eddie’s torso. They forwent the pajama pants Richie normally would’ve scrounged up – fell into bed in a tangle of lanky limbs and knobby knees in their boxers and undershirts.  
  
They never stopped laughing. Buried the sound in each other, muffling themselves with lips against throats, against jaws, against lips. Laughed and kissed until Richie was dizzy with it, until the world became something nonsensical and fantastical. Until Richie thought this must be the closest a human being could ever get to magic, to enchantment, until he had no choice but to reel Eddie in and press their lips together again and again so they didn’t break the spell.  
  
Until Eddie’s kisses grew slow, languid, sloppy. Sometimes barely a kiss, sometimes not at all, just the two of them, drunk and stupid, limbs tangled together and mouths sharing the same small gasp of air. They were so fucking drunk – Richie was losing time, fighting his body to stay awake, stay alert. He wanted to linger in this moment for as long as he could, to feel the smooth warmth of Eddie’s skin against his, the soft tussle of Eddie’s hair between his fingers, the heady scent of sweat and sleep and _Eddie_. The whole world was blurry and quiet, just the two of them cocooned in Richie’s bed, their breaths of laughter and soft smack of lips and the murmur of Eddie saying Richie’s name like a goddamn dream.  
  
Richie tightened the arm he had around Eddie until it was curved up the whole length of Eddie’s spine, his hand at the base of Eddie’s neck. There wasn’t much left in him: Richie used the last bit of energy he had to press Eddie forward and catch their lips together one last time, hard and firm and full of something Richie didn’t have the guts to put into words. Eddie curled his fingers tighter into Richie’s hair in response, pressed his whole body into the kiss until Richie couldn’t be sure where he ended and Eddie began.  
  
They fell asleep like that, bodies impossibly close, curled together in Richie’s warm comforter, heads on the same pillow. They fell asleep with Richie stroking long, soft lines up the bare skin of Eddie’s arm, with Eddie’s fingers curled possessively around Richie’s hip, with their legs tangled together from thigh to bony knee to ankle. Richie had a single, conscious thought that maybe he could sleep like this every day for the rest of his life. They fell asleep.  
  
  
  
  
  
Richie woke up slowly. Probably his body’s attempt at defending itself from his horrible alcoholic life choices – if his senses came back to him one at a time, slow gasps of consciousness, maybe the realization that his rum-soaked brain was still actually _functioning_ wouldn’t be quite so bad _.  
  
_So first he felt it. The weight of another body on his bed, the dip of the mattress beneath them, the press and tangle of sweaty limbs against his own. Stan or Eddie, probably. Slim chance maybe Mike. He could hear them breathing, so good news was neither one of them was dead. Smell – Eddie. Richie shifted his head on his pillow – huge mistake, the single tilt of his jaw just slightly to the left rocked his brain against the walls of his skull. But he was definitely right, it was Eddie – he could smell Eddie’s shampoo, feel the curling ends of Eddie’s hair against his forehead.  
  
Richie licked his lips – bone dry, fuck he was so dehydrated. But he licked them again anyway, because his body was moving faster than his brain, for once, and therefore noticed before he did that something was…his lips were swollen. Not just chapped and dry, but swollen, like he’d had a marathon make out, like he’d…like he’d…  
  
Richie snapped his eyes open and immediately swallowed the wave of nausea that followed. This was _important_ , goddammit, he didn’t have time to be hungover. His eyes were _burning_ , he’d fallen asleep in his fucking contacts again, but at least that meant he could kind of see.  
  
There was so much skin. Smooth, bare skin, paler in the dead of winter, a small smattering of freckles marking Eddie’s shoulder here, his arm there. One of Eddie’s arms was locked like a vice around Richie’s waist, his hand hooked around Richie’s hip, and it was all the press of skin on skin on _so much fucking bare skin_. Richie dragged his hand down the smooth length of Eddie’s arm, from the ball of his shoulder to the crook of his elbow, and the motion resonated as his brain finally, _finally_ caught up with the rest of him.  
  
Holy Shit.  
  
Holy _Shit_.  
  
His hand was still moving, fingers drifting up and down Eddie’s arm. This was how he’d fallen asleep too, lulled himself to sleep with the mechanical repetition, the rhythm of the motion. He’d fallen asleep to the warmth of Eddie’s breath on his neck and the feeling of Eddie’s bare skin under his hands, with the taste of Eddie still on his lips.  
  
Eddie groaned into the pillow under his face, a muffled, kitten-weak sound that still somehow perfectly summarized how Richie felt. His brain was picking up speed too fast, tripping over itself, scrambling to fight through the haze of too much alcohol and not enough sleep. They went to bed _so late_ , God, so late because they’d been too busy _making out_ _for hours_ , oh my god. He was too hungover for this, hell, maybe even still a little too drunk for this, he needed more sleep. He needed to pull the blanket up over his head, over both of them, to burrow back down into the enchantment of 4:00am and let time stand still for a little while. Just for long enough for Richie to sleep until his brain didn’t feel like soup anymore, until his muscles didn’t feel like lead.  
  
And honestly, until he could drag this moment out for as long as possible. Because hangover aside, blind panic aside – Richie had _wanted this_. It was hardly the first time Richie and Eddie had woken up together, but God, _God_ this was the first time they had woken up _together_ , and Richie wanted to linger in it. Wanted to sink back into the familiar cradle of his mattress with Eddie’s warm, sleepy weight pinning him down. Wanted to risk moving just enough to bury his face in Eddie’s hair. Wanted to never stop drifting his fingers down the length of Eddie’s arm. Richie let his eyes close, inhaled a careful, calming breath, and ran two fingers over the ball of Eddie’s shoulder.  
  
Eddie whined again, a little louder with a little more force than the first one. Richie paused his movement, let his fingers fall still, and listened. Eddie was always the opposite of Richie – he felt his way back to consciousness by talking himself into it, the only time day or night that Eddie Kaspbrak out-talked the Trashmouth.  
  
“ _Fuck_ ,” Eddie moaned, dragging out the f before gasping the rest of the word out. “Ffffuuuck, my head.”  
  
He flexed the fingers on the hand still clutching Richie’s hip. Richie held himself still, barely even breathing, focused on the clench and release of Eddie’s fingers on his back. Eddie didn’t seem to notice – he shifted the arm locked around Richie’s waist but didn’t move it away, didn’t lift his head up off the pillow, his face so close to Richie’s shoulder that Richie could feel puffs of air against his skin.  
  
And then the hand on his hip went sharp, fingertips biting into his skin, and Richie knew that Eddie just caught up with himself.  
  
“Fuck,” Eddie said again. But it was clipped and distinct, and it bit at Richie like a pinch to the sensitive skin on his ribs.  
  
Eddie’s hand relaxed its vice-like hold on Richie’s hip, but he didn’t move it away. Not yet.  
  
“Richie?”  
  
Richie inhaled slowly. His stomach churned, and never before had Richie _wished_ for hangover symptoms. He _prayed_ for his newfound nausea to be the rum turning his empty stomach, his body trying to reject the toxic mess he’d filled it with – hell, he prayed for the sudden, violent need to sprint for the bathroom. Because Eddie’s voice was cold and cautious, and the bile roiling inside Richie suddenly felt a whole lot like dread.  
  
He exhaled just as slowly and opened his eyes.  
  
Eddie unwound his arm from Richie’s waist, careful not to let his hand drag along Richie’s skin for even a second. He tucked his arm under himself instead, braced his forearms against the mattress and pushed himself upright, lifting up and away from Richie. Richie watched him go, watched him move, watched the spasm of emotions crossing Eddie’s face and tried to make even the slightest sense of them.  
  
“Hey, Eds,” Richie said quietly.  
  
Croaked, really. His voice sounded terrible, like he’d spent a few hours gargling salt water before leading the pit at a hardcore rock show. He wanted to clear his throat but was afraid to bring attention to himself, to make unnecessary noise – Richie couldn’t read Eddie’s face, couldn’t tell what he was thinking, but maybe if he made himself small and quiet and insignificant the panic would stop flashing in Eddie’s wide eyes.  
  
“Did we…” Eddie trailed off, and Richie bit down on a half a dozen things _we could have done_ that immediately spring to mind. Eddie had two fingers pressed to his bottom lip anyway, and his eyes locked on Richie’s throat in a way that Richie knew, _knew_ , meant there was a goddamn hickey there. But they were both still wearing their boxers, and he was pretty sure at least one of them would be able to feel it if they’d done anything below the belt…Eddie’s question was superfluous. Unnecessary. A pointless statement of the obvious.  
  
Richie shifted his shoulders slightly, braced himself for the mutiny in his head and stomach, and pushed himself up into a mostly-sitting position, leaning back against the wall next to his bed. He pretended not to notice the way Eddie flinched away from him, the way Eddie pushed back in the exact opposite direction, as far as possible from Richie without physically leaving the bed.  
  
“It was just a kiss,” Richie said quietly. He knew before the words even left his mouth it was the wrong thing to say – not because it undermined the meaning behind their actions, but because it did exactly the opposite. So early in the morning, laid bare and vulnerable, Richie wasn’t capable of hiding behind a Voice or a joke or a laugh. This raw and open and honest, Richie had _nothing_ to hide himself behind, nothing to put between Eddie’s wary expression and the truth that there was nothing _just_ about them kissing.  
  
“It was a mistake,” Eddie said flatly.  
  
Richie recoiled like Eddie had hit him. He wished Eddie _had_ hit him, wished there was a source for the pain four stupid little words cut into him, for the ricochet and rebound as Eddie’s cold voice and Eddie’s hard eyes and Eddie’s clenched jaw echoed throughout him. It was a mistake. A _mistake_.  
  
Richie closed his eyes. His mostly dry contacts were still burning, but he wasn’t stupid enough to think that was why his vision was rapidly blurring. But it would be a cold day in hell – he wouldn’t give Eddie the _satisfaction_. A mistake. A fucking _mistake_. Richie breathed slowly, pointedly. The way his boss at the WGSU had taught him, to fight off the butterflies or the nerves or, apparently, the soul-crushing devastation of being rejected in your own fucking bed. In for three, out for three. In for three, out for three. In for three. Richie opened his eyes.  
  
“I think you should go,” he told Eddie. The voice that came out of him – not a Voice, not like that, because it was so undeniably _Richie_ , but it. It was hard. Icy. The rasp that had been there seconds before was gone, replaced by a vein of steel that gave Richie’s words backbone that he didn’t ordinarily have. People didn’t take Richie seriously when he talked – not when he said outrageous things, not when he said sensible things, not when he said intelligent or asinine or nonsensical things. People didn’t _listen_ to Richie, but this.  
  
Eddie looked at Richie, eyes wide again. This was a voice that could not be ignored. Richie wondered a little bit at the panic still on Eddie’s face. Richie was giving Eddie the ultimate out – no conversation, no explanations, no crying or begging or awkwardly forcing his feelings on anybody. Just an easy out. Get out, leave the room. Pretend none of it ever happened.  
  
But Eddie looked, if possible, even more distressed than he had before.  
  
“It was – we were _so drunk_ ,” Eddie said desperately. Like Richie didn’t _know that_ , like Richie asked for a goddamn explanation. “We were…I mean, we were _stupid_. It was…it didn’t…”  
  
“Like you said,” Richie agreed. “It was a _mistake_.” The steel didn’t leave his tone.  
  
“That’s not what I… _fuck_ , Richie.”  
  
Eddie didn’t look reassured. If anything, he looked worse, eyes darting back and forth as he studied Richie’s face, fingers curling into fists against his thighs. He was kneeling on the edge of the bed, feet tucked under his ass, and he made an aborted movement forward, like he was going to lean toward Richie.  
  
And God, Richie had never been more aware of how small his tiny little twin sized mattress was. He twisted free of the tangle of sheets around his shins and all but threw himself off the bed, suddenly more claustrophobic than he’d ever been in his life. Forget his bed, his _room_ was too small, and why the fuck was Eddie _still in it_? Still sitting on Richie’s bed and staring at him, unfinished sentence hanging heavy in the air between them.  
  
Richie should’ve known this was coming, honestly.  
  
Eddie’s hand fell back down into his lap like he really _had_ been raising it up to reach out, to touch Richie, like he had _any fucking right_. Richie took a step back, one, and then two, until he was right up against his desk. Eddie’s pants, one leg inside out, were flung unceremoniously over the back of his desk chair – for a split second Richie thought he might throw up on them. He could _feel_ Eddie’s eyes on him, and the vomiting was starting to look like a viable option for real, because Richie’s whole body was rebelling against this.  
  
“I thought I told you to get out,” Richie said slowly.  
  
“Rich.” Eddie’s voice was small, tentative, like _Richie_ was the one hurting _him_. Like _Richie_ had woken up and panicked and thrown Eddie out of his bed, like _Eddie_ was battered and broken hearted and still reeling from the whiplash of getting everything he’d ever wanted only to have all of it and more fucking ripped away again barely _hours_ later. _Minutes_ ago Richie had been warm and safe under the weight of Eddie’s body, content to sleep off his hangover until they could both drag their sorry asses to the shower, maybe the diner. _Eddie_ was the one that had stabbed a knife in that fantasy, twisted it sharp and deep and wrenched it out to let Richie bleed out on the floor. _Eddie_ didn’t get to sit in a puddle of Richie’s blood and blankets and look at Richie with sad, wet eyes like this was _Richie’s_ fault.  
  
“Get. Out.”  
  
Eddie scrambled to his feet, took a step forward, and that was _it_. Richie didn’t _care_ what Eddie was opening his mouth to say, didn’t give a _fuck_ what bullshit he was about to spew, what excuses or explanations or victim-blaming drivel. Didn’t care that there were fucking tears in Eddie’s eyes, that Eddie was so pale he looked ill, Richie didn’t fucking _care_.  
  
If he concentrated, closed his eyes and really, really tried, he could almost remember it. The sharp contrast of Eddie’s hot lips and cold fingers, the curve of Eddie’s hips under Richie’s hands, the heady feeling of knowing this was _it_ , this was the moment that Richie had fucking _dreamed about_ for years and years. He could almost feel it, and for one more second he let himself hold onto that.  
  
“I’m going to take a shower,” Richie said, firm and unflinching, opening his eyes slowly to stare directly at Eddie. “And I swear to god, if you’re not gone by the time I get back I'll, I'll...”  
  
Richie didn't know what he'd do, honestly. But it didn't seem to matter. Maybe it was because Richie had never been quite so at a loss for words before. Or maybe because the finality in his tone was so sharp, so cutting, that it sliced in deeper than just the end of this conversation. But Eddie stood in front of Richie’s bed in nothing but his boxers, looking as raw and lashed open as Richie felt. Stood in front of Richie’s bed and stared unapologetically back at him as the tears that had been threatening to fall finally spilled over onto his cheeks.  
  
There wasn’t anything else to be said, after that. Richie gave Eddie one last look, nodded firmly to himself, and left the room.  
  


* * *

**Winter Break, Junior Year**

* * *

  
Eddie didn’t come home for winter break either.

* * *

_Goddamn, you look holy,_ _bathed in the January light._ _  
_ _You were the one thing I got right._

* * *

  
There is a playlist for  _Winterbreak_  - if you'd like to listen to the whole thing all at once, you can find it [here](https://open.spotify.com/user/1239648869/playlist/3pS5XQu7CkeCfp33mD5zeE?si=4ejxt-_tQ9qTSHiu177vrw). If you'd like to listen chapter by chapter, the chapter 4 playlist is [here](https://open.spotify.com/user/1239648869/playlist/0xvRrXJmeb0Eije7BaLyFT?si=j1C7C8bFTw6W5RcfBhyk2Q). I'm mostly a lurker on tumblr these days, but if you'd like to pick my brain about my very firm and utterly baseless headcanons about Richie Tozier you can find me [here](http://thegloryof.tumblr.com/). 


	5. Summer Break, After Junior Year

**Chapter 5 – Summer Break, After Junior Year**  
_Masterpiece Theatre II – Marianas Trench_        
    

* * *

  
  
Packing, Richie had been delighted to learn, got progressively easier every semester. By the end of his junior year he’d narrowed it down to a few duffle bags full of clothes and no more than a trunk-full of boxes with his miscellany and necessities. It made unpacking so much better, so much _simpler_ , he almost didn’t even mind having to do it anymore.  
  
Apparently, though, that went right out the window when you had 48 hours to unpack, do more loads of laundry than Richie thought possible, and repack a _completely different set of clothes_. A set of clothes that would last three months in an unknown city, a set that was somewhere between casual, cool, and work appropriate for a job that had no discernible dress code. A set of clothes that fit into a single suitcase and a carry on – because Richie’s flight to New York City left 4pm Sunday, and his internship started Monday.  
  
His twelve week, paid, highly intensive internship at Z100, working directly under radio icon Elvis Duran at the _Elvis Duran and the Morning Show.  
  
_Richie had just enough time to drive home after his last final, pack for the complete unknown, and kiss his friends goodbye before the greatest fucking summer of his entire twenty one years of life.  
  
He’d dropped the news Saturday morning, six out of seven of them crammed into their booth at the diner after Richie sent out an SOS. He loved his friends so fucking much, he had always known that, but some days they blew him away – Bev screaming in his year, Bill grabbing Richie and kissing him full on the lips, Ben repeating the news to the entire diner – he fucking _loved them.  
  
_None of them talked about the obvious – that Richie was missing their last summer home, that they had two days to fit an entire summer’s worth of quality time in before their senior years started. And _who knew_ where they would be next summer, college graduates and scattered around the country. But his fucking friends were the best fucking friends on the entire planet, and none of them said a single disappointed word as they celebrated his insanely cool success. They asked pressing questions about the show, about what the internship included, if he knew how many candidates he’d beat out for the job. They asked him where he was going to live, what he was going to do in New York, and didn’t say a single damn thing about how much it sucked that he was going to be gone.  
  
They didn’t say anything, but when he casually mentioned after breakfast that he had a bunch of errands to run and laundry to do and packing to figure out, half of them had practically _jumped_ on him. Stan was in the passenger's seat of Richie’s car before anyone else could even _think_ the word shotgun, Bill and Bev shoving things around in the backseat until there was enough room for both of them. Ben’s shift at the library ended at four o’clock, Richie was pretty sure he’d see both Ben and Mike at his house by 4:30 _tops.  
  
_Eddie wasn’t due home until Sunday morning. Richie hoped someone other than Stan would be the one to tell him Rich was gone for the summer.  
  
So he spent his first and last day home for the summer running around town with his best friends, the same as he had always done. Let Stan fill a basket with enough toiletries for a year (put half of them back when he wasn’t looking), used his parent’s credit card to buy all three shirts and both pair of pants Bev picked out for him. Played deejay in his own car as he swapped out CD after CD, rifled through the Losers Club Greatest Hits as they drove through town with the windows down. Bill took over Richie’s laundry, Bev his unpacking, Stan made lists of everything Richie would need. Mike and Ben showed up a little before five with pizza and beer, and they sat on the Tozier’s back deck and toasted over and over to the internship, to Z100, to Elvis Duran, to Richie’s future career. God, he would do _anything_ to protect his amazing friends.  
  
They trickled out one by one – all except Stan, who stayed pointedly planted on one patio chair until Richie threw up his hands and said, “you're obviously sleeping over dumbass, are you going to help me clean up these plates or not?” Richie knew they’d be back in the morning. Bill was driving him to the airport, Ben was abusing his library privileges to print pages and pages from the Z100 website, Bev had promised to help Richie pack.  
  
Which was what landed Richie standing in front of his bed Sunday morning with a vague sense that this would be his undoing. The entire contents of his closet and two-thirds of his dresser were piled on his bare mattress, a veritable mountain of options, and Richie was starting to panic. What the fuck did a person even wear for an internship? Did he need suits? Even for a trendy radio show internship? Was he going to look like the lamest dick in New York, showing up for work at a top-40s pop station in an ill-fitting blazer and one of his dad’s old ties? Should he dress cool? _Richie’s_ version of cool, or the conventional option? And what about when he _wasn’t_ at work – he had to prioritize work clothes in his limited suitcase space, but if he was bringing nothing but suits what the hell was he going to wear when he went out? Would he even find friends willing to go out with him? Oh god, was he going to be twenty one and friendless and alone in the greatest city in the world? What the _fuck_ –  
  
“ _Richie.”  
  
_It was not, Richie could tell, the first time Bev had said his name. She’d given up an hour ago, gone to sit with Stan on Richie’s window seat while Richie blindly tried on pants he hadn’t worn in three years. He pulled himself out of his head long enough to look over at her.  
  
“We have to go,” she said bluntly.  
  
Richie frowned at her, gestured wordlessly at the piles he and Bev had made on his bed – “cool” clothes, “work” clothes, and “staples,” whatever the fuck those were. He had three hours to make sense of this chaos, Bev was supposed to help him! And who was this _we_ bullshit, Stan was glaring mutinously at Beverly the same way Richie was!  
  
“ _We_ –” Stan started hotly. Bev smacked his shoulder and jerked her head out the window in the _least subtle gesture_ Richie had ever seen. But whatever it was seemed to work – Stan barely glanced out the window before he jumped to his feet too.“Right. Yeah, I totally forgot.”  
  
“Forgot _what,”_ Richie whined. What the _fuck_ , guys? “Forgot that you were supposed to help me with this garbage??”  
  
“Look,” Bev crossed the bedroom in quick steps, pitching her voice soft and soothing. “I wrote it down for you, it’s easy. Pick your ten favorite shirts, five nice shirts. Three pairs of jeans, two pairs of nice pants. One full suit. Two sweaters. Denim jacket, and that weird blazer we got when you were in Chicago. Narrow it down to that, okay? I’ll go over it with you when we get back.”  
  
She leaned in and kissed his cheek, pressed a piece of paper into his hand, and made for the door like the house was on fire. Richie gaped after her before turning just quickly enough to grab Stan’s arm on his way out.  
  
“Trust me, you do _not_ want me here for this,” Stan said. He looked Richie over once, frowned thoughtfully at Richie’s jeans and bare chest, reached out and plucked a plain white t-shirt from Richie’s “staples” pile. “Put this on. Don’t do anything stupid. We’ll be back in a couple of hours.”  
  
“A couple of – what the fuck?” Richie yelled after him, but Stan was already gone. “If this is your idea of a surprise party it’s really not smooth at all!”  
  
Nobody answered him. Richie stared at his closed bedroom door, completely baffled and a little bit stung, standing in the middle of his room with a shirt dangling from one hand and a scrap of paper in the other. He took it all back. His friends were _nuts.  
  
_He was still standing there, shirtless and staring at Bev’s messy scratch of handwriting, when there was a gentle tap on his door.  
  
“ _Forget_ something?” he grumbled, “or just realized that you were being – Eddie.”  
  
Eddie _fucking_ Kaspbrak stood in Richie’s doorway, wide-eyed and breathless.  
  
Richie pulled the shirt on.  
  
“Hey,” Eddie said nervously.  
  
“Marsh thinks she’s so damn slick, doesn’t she?” Richie sighed.  
  
He didn’t blame them – he probably would’ve cleared out of here too, given any sort of warning. He and Eddie were _okay...ish. Sort of._ They were friendly. Richie had the passing thought once or twice last semester that he missed Eddie and hadn’t immediately wanted to punch something over the idea. But there was something about being alone in his room together, the morning before he was about to leave Derry for three months, that stretched beyond the limits of _okay-ish_.  
  
Eddie shrugged. Richie sighed again, shoved Bev’s packing list into his back pocket before gesturing Eddie into the room.  
  
“C’mon, don’t just stand there. You want coffee or something? Didn’t you take an overnight bus up here?”  
  
Eddie looked at Richie like he was unrecognizable – Richie didn’t blame him. Richie wasn’t really sure who this small-talking, coffee-offering hospitable host was. None of his friends needed to be _offered_ things at Richie’s house, they helped themselves like it was their own.  
  
Then again it _had_ been two and a half years since Eddie had last stepped foot in the Tozier house.  
  
“Dude, really,” Richie eyed Eddie critically, still standing awkwardly in the doorway. “At least come in.”  
  
Eddie squared his shoulders and stepped forward like he was walking into a fight. To be fair, Richie wasn’t entirely sure that it wasn’t about to be one. Eddie was too quiet, gnawing on his bottom lip like he did when he was anxious, fingers hooked around his belt right where that old fanny pack used to sit. Eddie was steeling himself up for _something_ , and the longer it took the less Richie liked the look of it.  
  
“I had a plan,” Eddie said finally. He winced a little bit, and that was all it took for Richie to know that Eddie was already wrong-footed. He’d rehearsed this, probably on the bus ride back to Derry, and yet immediately started off script. “It was – I can’t say it was a _good_ plan, but it was a plan. I just. I thought I’d have all summer.”  
  
“I’ll be back before the semester starts,” Richie said carefully. Neutrally. “I have to be out of the room I’m subletting by the 17th, school starts the 25th.”  
  
“I go back the 16th.” Eddie exhaled, a frustrated little huff of sound. Richie knew the feeling. “I don’t think a week would’ve done much good anyway.”  
  
Eddie shifted his weight, scraped one hand through his hair. It wasn’t a tic Richie was used to seeing on Eddie – Eddie’s hair was usually carefully coiffed, probably stiff and unmovable under all that product.  
  
( _Richie knew first hand that Eddie’s hair was surprisingly soft, that somehow he could still effortlessly thread his fingers through it, that Eddie mewled a soft little noise when Richie’s nails scratched against the nape of his neck_ )  
  
But maybe that’s what happened when too much time passed between people. Richie hadn’t seen Eddie since last August – a miserable final schedule and an interim classes kept Eddie at Wagner over his breaks, a grueling attempt to graduate the nursing program in four years instead of five. Richie had half expected Eddie to stay the summer semester too, had thought once or twice about them both being in New York City, or close enough, about whether or not they’d make an effort to see each other. But Eddie was here in Derry, in Richie’s bedroom, looking a little bit taller and a little bit older, a little tired and rumpled around the edges. Richie wasn’t sure he really knew this Eddie. Not anymore.  
  
“What was the plan?” he prompted.  
  
Eddie seemed at a loss. He shook his head, chewed on his bottom lip, shrugged helplessly.  
  
“It doesn’t really matter anymore, does it?” he said finally. “It’s a moot point.”  
  
Richie waited. He didn’t say that it obviously _wasn’t_. That it _clearly_ mattered, or Eddie wouldn’t be here. Eddie wasn’t the only one of them that had changed since the last time they were together in this room. Older, wiser Richie knew the power of silence, of holding back his biting commentary and letting the other person talk themselves stupid. And for all they’d always teased Richie for talking a lot, Eddie was never particularly good at sitting quietly either.  
  
“You weren’t a mistake,” Eddie said finally.  
  
Of all the things that Eddie possibly could have said in that moment, that might have been the _last_ thing Richie would have considered. It hit him hard, harder than it should have, like a knife right in the soft space between his ribs. Richie couldn’t do anything but stand there and _stare_ at Eddie, but it didn’t seem to matter.  
  
“You weren’t, you could _never_ be a mistake _,_ Rich, and I will never, ever forgive myself for letting you think that,” Eddie continued. “I waited _years_ for that to happen, kissing you wasn’t a mistake and it _absolutely_ meant something, and if you walk away from this hearing nothing else please at least know that.”  
  
“But you said it.” Richie didn’t say it petulantly or plaintively, just matter-of-fact. Eddie _had_ said it, there was no point pretending he hadn’t. “You said it was.”  
  
“I know,” Eddie nodded. “I know I did, I just...I _panicked._ I wanted that – _you_ – for so long, and I woke up and I couldn’t remember what happened. I couldn’t remember how we got there or what we said, I didn’t know what _I_ had said, if I had said too much or made a total ass of myself or what. I just _panicked_ , Richie, I was so scared and I freaked out and then it was too late to take it back.”  
  
“I’m the one that makes an ass of himself,” Richie said wryly. “I do it all the time.”  
  
“But you were so _calm_.” Eddie was edging just slightly into that frantic tone he used when he was really worked up about something. “All I could think was that we were so fucking drunk and that it would’ve been so _easy_ for you to just laugh it off and say we must’ve just had too much to drink, to brush it off because it didn’t mean anything to you. I was so scared it didn’t mean anything to you.”  
  
Richie...Richie didn’t know what to do with that. He wasn’t sure if he _believed it_ – how could Eddie not know how Richie felt about him? _Everybody_ knew how Richie felt about Eddie, even though he’d never said a word about it to any of them. All of their friends knew, his parents knew, half their high school probably knew. Richie’s friends at college probably knew, for fucks sake. How could Eddie honestly stand there and say he thought it wouldn’t mean anything to Richie?  
  
But then...Eddie _had_ also said that he wanted it. Maybe even implied that he felt the same way about Richie that Richie had about him. And _that_ sure as shit was something Richie never saw coming. He had always assumed that his own feelings were so obvious, that Eddie’s passive acceptance without reciprocation was his way of politely shutting Richie down. Hadn’t _Richie_ always assumed that Eddie didn’t feel anything for him? Was it really so outlandish that Eddie would have thought the same thing about _Richie?  
  
_“You still think that?” he asked mildly. False, forced calm.  
  
Eddie laughed. It was sharp, mocking, a self-deprecating little thing that Richie wanted to cringe away from.  
  
“No,” Eddie said shortly. “Call me crazy, but a meaningless one-night stand wouldn’t have torpedoed ten years of friendship.” He glanced up at Richie and smirked just slightly, fond and wry at the same time. “I’ve never seen you be that intentionally mean to someone. I would’ve been proud, if it was anybody other than _me_ on the receiving end of it.”  
  
“Yeah, well,” Richie shrugged. “You broke my heart.”  
  
He hadn’t meant to say that. He’d _thought it_ plenty, knew it was true, but Richie had never actually meant to _admit it.  
  
_But Eddie flinched like Richie had hit him, and it was nice to not be the one getting pushed around by words for a change.  
  
“I know,” Eddie whispered. He had his eyes closed, jaw clenched – he opened up and looked imploringly at Richie. “I know, and I’m so _fucking_ sorry, Richie. I’m so sorry.”  
  
Richie nodded. He knew that already – he’d known that for years, really. It didn’t change anything.  
  
“You could’ve said something sooner.”  
  
“Could I?” Eddie shook his head. “I tried, you know. The whole thing with Miles – that didn’t help, obviously. But I did try.” He smiled a little. “I rigged that Secret Santa, you know. I found that shirt in a thrift store in Brooklyn back in like September, but I needed an excuse to give it to you.”  
  
Eddie _had_ tried to talk to him that night, hadn’t he? He’d stayed awake when everyone else was passed out, followed Richie out of the barn and tried to get him alone. But Richie had been so fucking _angry_ , so self-righteous and guarded. He wouldn’t have heard a word Eddie said, would’ve just gotten madder if he tried – it was the right call, waiting until Richie could look Eddie in the eye before hearing him out. But okay, it would be unfair to say that Eddie hadn’t tried to say something sooner. Richie would give him that point. Except.  
  
“The thing with Miles,” he echoed. There was still the small fact that Eddie had _dated_ someone, that Eddie had _been_ dating someone, for weeks. That Eddie had _flaunted it_ , had shoved it in Richie’s face like he really wanted to prove just how badly Richie had lost. They’d both been cruel, but nothing else had made Richie feel quite as _used_. “Did you love him?”  
  
“Lo – no. _No_ ,” Eddie said firmly, shaking his head. “Miles was…”  
  
“A mistake?”  
  
“ _No_. Miles was an attempt. To, I don’t know, convince myself there were guys other than _you_ in the world, I guess. I was at college, in the city, and I was fucking _dying_ from missing you, and at first he was just...he was a hot guy that seemed to like hooking up with me as much as I liked hooking up with him. We’d get drunk at parties and make out until we passed out in someone’s room, and that was it.” Eddie glanced pointedly at Richie for a second before adding, “it’s not like you didn’t do your share of sleeping around.”  
  
“You’re right, I did,” Richie agreed. “But I also didn’t cheat on my boyfriend with you and then come home and rub your nose in it all summer.”  
  
Eddie winced, but he didn’t deny it.  
  
“I was mad,” he said honestly. “So fucking mad, at you, at me. But I told you, it wasn’t like that. We were just fucking around – if things had gone differently with _us_ I would’ve gone back to school and told him we couldn’t anymore, and he wouldn’t have thought twice about it. But after...I just thought maybe it would be a good idea to try to...move on.”  
  
“How’d that work out for you?”  
  
“Well I’m fucking _here_ , aren’t I?” Eddie snapped back. “I love you, and it’s been two _fucking years_ Rich, and I still can’t look at you without wanting to hit something, or cry, or throw myself on the ground at your feet and _beg you_ to forgive me, so clearly it didn’t exactly work out the way I fucking wanted it to.”  
  
In spite of himself, despite just how humorless Richie found the entire conversation, he couldn’t help but smile a little at how _very_ Eddie the moment was. Only Eddie Kaspbrak, love of his stupid, useless heart, could sound so goddamn _angry_ while telling someone that he loved them.  
  
“Yeah,” he said faintly. Eddie was staring, eyes wide, and panting a little. It was a sight so painfully familiar, so achingly nostalgic, Eddie angry and breathless and hopeful, all at once. But it didn’t undo what had changed between them. Nothing could undo that, even if Eddie so desperately wanted to. “Yeah, I guess it wasn’t your best plan.”  
  
“God help me,” Eddie sighed, “because I’ll never admit this again, but between the two of us, Rich, I’m not the planner.”  
  
“No,” Richie agreed, and he couldn’t help but sound a little fond about it. “No, you were always the one willing to go along with my crazy ideas.”  
  
Eddie’s lips quirked, just slightly, the corners of his mouth lifting up into the barest hint of a smile. Richie watched him – looked at him, really looked at him. Eddie looked _tired_. The kind of tired that came from more than staying up all night on an uncomfortable bus ride – shadows under his eyes that implied he hadn’t slept right in weeks, a dull, lackluster quality to skin that hadn’t seen sunlight in ages. But also something in his face, in his eyes – Eddie was _tired_ , tired like Richie was, of this useless, endless, painful _thing_ that had grown so wild and untamed between them.  
  
“What do you expect to happen here?” he asked quietly, breaking the silence that had fallen over them. Eddie looked a little startled, by the question or by the sound Richie really didn’t know.  
  
“I want us to be...friends, I guess I don’t know.” Eddie shrugged. _Friends_. Eddie was going to come to his room for the first time in two and a half years, give him some speech, casually drop in a quick “I love you,” right in the middle of it, and tell Richie that he wanted them to be _friends_.  
  
Like they were fucking _twelve_ again. Like when Eddie blamed Richie for breaking his arm when Richie hadn’t even been in the same _room_ , only for Eddie to show up at Richie’s house the next day with a fresh white cast and a real prescription for painkillers and an apology that had very nearly started the fight up all over again. Back then it had ended with Richie writing _Richie Tozier is my best friend_ in big letters down the outside of Eddie’s arm, dotting every i with a little heart. But they weren’t twelve anymore.  
  
“Okay fine, we’re friends again.” Richie rolled his eyes.  
  
“That’s not –” Eddie huffed angrily. “ _Richie_.”  
  
“ _What,_ Eddie? What,” Richie snapped. “You think it’s just that easy? That we can just flip a switch and go back to the way things were? The fucking Richie and Eddie show, live in living color, back from a quick little soul-crushing hiatus?”  
  
“Obviously _not_ ,” Eddie snarled back. “But whose fucking fault is that? I’ve been trying for _months_ , Rich, for _years_. You wouldn’t even _talk_ to me for like a year and a half, and I still fucking tried.”  
  
“Fuck knows _why_.”  
  
“Because I love you!” Eddie yelled it, forcefully enough that Richie physically recoiled. Eddie took a deep breath, lowered his voice, but didn’t slow down. “Because I’m in love with you, and I have been for most of my life, and probably will be for the rest of it, and I can’t...I can’t live like this anymore. I’m miserable, all the fucking time, and I think you are too.”  
  
“You said that already.” Richie felt like a deflated balloon. Like a flat tire. Like the rug that was being pulled out from under someone’s feet – punctured and useless and worn thin, that hot flash of anger sizzling out of him as quickly as it had appeared.  
  
“I’ll probably say it again,” Eddie shrugged.  
  
“Why?”  
  
“Because I do. I love you,” Eddie took a step forward – they’d been far enough apart that it didn’t do much in the way of bringing him closer, but rather just highlighted how much space was still between them. Almost the full length of Richie’s bedroom – maybe more than that. Maybe an insurmountable space.  
  
“Stop saying it,” Richie said quietly.  
  
“Why should I?” Eddie took another step forward.  
  
Richie shook his head. Eddie took two more steps.  
  
“I love you,” he said again. “I really, really fucking do.”  
  
“I know,” Richie sighed. “I know you do.”  
  
“You love me, too.” Eddie said it so brashly, so matter-of-factly – in another moment, Richie would have laughed at the sheer audacity of it. Would have been delighted by it. “You don’t need to say it, I know it anyway.”  
  
Richie wasn’t going to say it. That didn’t make it untrue – of course he loved Eddie, he’d love Eddie fucking Kaspbrak until the day they both fucking died. That was a curse Richie was just going to have to live with, for the rest of his useless, empty life.  
  
“It doesn’t matter,” he said finally.  
  
Eddie stopped. He’d come close enough now that he was only two steps away – one, if Richie met him halfway. But Richie didn’t move. Wouldn’t move. Couldn’t move.  
  
“Why not?” Eddie asked carefully.  
  
“Look at us,” Richie gestured vaguely at the air around them, like the tension and the awkwardness and the distance was somehow distinguishable in the space between them. “We nearly destroyed each other over one bad fight.”  
  
“I’d say it was a little more than that,” Eddie said drily.  
  
“What happens next time?” Richie continued. “We go to school in different states – I’ll be gone all summer. You probably won’t come home for winter break. Sure, we’ll make an effort even through the distance, and it’ll be good for a while, maybe it works for one semester, maybe two.”  
  
Eddie opened his mouth – Richie didn’t let him talk. Richie once held a full, proper filibuster for an entire American History class just to prove a point, Eddie didn’t stand a chance.  
  
“But we both get busy, and we talk less,” he continued. “Let’s be honest, I’m an annoying fuck sometimes, and you’re no picnic either. So, there are days when you still want to punch me and days when I still can’t even talk to you, but now it’s because it’s just too much to handle on top of everything else that’s going on. You start to resent me, and I start to avoid you. We get a weekend together eventually, probably by fucking over something that’s actually more important but we both pretend _this_ is the most important thing, even though we know it’s not. So we bicker about something stupid, and it festers into a fight, a real fight, another fucking blow out, and we’ve already proven just how much damage we can do to each other when we’re feeling vicious and vengeful.”  
  
Eddie looked...Eddie looked like Richie felt. He looked _sad_ , so _fucking_ sad, and tired. And lonely. And sad. But he still didn’t look convinced.  
  
“We don’t talk for months, after that,” Richie pressed forward. “Again. It’s pretty easy to do, since I’m applying to grad schools for next fall, and they’re all out west. I’ll be in California, and you’ll be hours and hours away, and it’ll be easy to avoid each other. And I’ll come home eventually, for Christmas probably, but it won’t matter because we’ve gotten _good_ at avoiding each other. We won’t put our friends in the middle again, so we just avoid them. You get Bill in the divorce, and I get Stan. Bev tries to force us to talk, so we both start avoiding her. Ben’s collateral just for taking her side. Mike’s smart enough to stay neutral, but we’re both a little bitter about it anyway. We’re never in the same room again, the seven of us. I move out to California once school is over, and let’s be honest, after a while it’s easier to just...not come back to Derry. So I don’t. And you get a job at a hospital on the East Coast, hopefully somewhere far away from your fucking mother, and you never have a reason to leave. We get so good at avoiding everyone that eventually we forget we were ever _friends_.”  
  
”What if we don’t, though?” Eddie interrupted gently. “What if we figure it out, if we make it work, not something perfect but something _real_. _.._ Don’t you think it’s worth finding out?  
  
“I can’t imagine anything that would be worth losing you completely,” Richie replied honestly. He’d come close enough to it already, and he knew he probably would again, in this lifetime. Richie wasn’t going to do anything to speed up the process, not if he could help it. “I’d rather have some of you than none of you.”  
  
Eddie stepped forward. Richie let him. Let him close the last bit of distance between them, let him reach two hands up to cup Richie’s jaw, let him guide Richie’s head down just enough that Eddie could lean up and press their lips together. It was achingly simple and painfully sweet – just Eddie’s closed mouth caught against his own, Eddie’s hands on Richie’s cheeks, the tips of his fingers in Richie’s hair. And because this was _it_ , because Richie couldn’t see this ever happening again, he let himself sink into it. Let himself raise his own hands and bury them into the hair at the nape of Eddie’s neck, pressed his thumbs into the soft hinges of Eddie’s jaw until they were _really_ kissing. For a second Richie could remember the shock of searing heat as he had kissed Eddie in the blistering cold January night – he chased the memory away with the taste of Eddie’s tongue and an urgency bordering on desperation. Fuck. _Fuck_. Richie would die for this. Richie couldn’t do this.  
  
He pulled away first. Pulled back just enough that he could breathe, that only their foreheads were still pressed together. Eddie kept his hands on Richie’s cheeks; Richie couldn’t quite bring himself to let go of Eddie’s hair. He just needed to get his breathing in check again. Get himself under control. Remember that this was a disaster in the making, that next time it wouldn’t just implode but _ex_ plode, ruin not just them but everything. Richie couldn’t do that – not to himself, not to Eddie, not to his friends. He’d rather have just a little bit of Eddie, just enough, than have nothing at all.  
  
“Okay,” Eddie sighed, and Richie felt the air against his lips.  
  
Eddie pulled back completely – Richie let his hands slip from Eddie’s hair, the soft brown strands sliding delicately between his fingers as Eddie slowly took a step back away from him. Eddie nodded, to himself more than Richie, and Richie tried desperately not to notice the wet sheen of Eddie’s cheeks. But Eddie made no effort to hide it – he nodded again, just once, and scrubbed the heel of his hand under one eye, then the other.  
  
“Okay,” he said again. Regrouping. Pulling himself together. “I know we can’t just...be okay again. Just like that. But if we can’t have...this,” he waved a hand between them – Richie fought the urge to press his own hand to his lips – before wiping quickly under his eye again, “we should at least _try_ to suck a little less.”  
  
“Yeah.” Richie laughed, a hoarse little sound that was suspiciously choked – Richie closed his eyes, took a breath before opening them again.  
  
“I hope you have an amazing time in New York,” Eddie continued. His voice was shaking, going raw around the edges, but he still somehow stayed composed as he looked Richie in the eye. “I’m so, so fucking proud of you, you know. You’re going to knock their socks off, I mean it.”  
  
“Thanks,” Richie rasped. This was getting _bad_ – he needed Eddie _out of there_.  
  
“Just...try? Please? Call me when you get settled in, or if you need a recommendation for a good slice of pizza, or just…”  
  
“Yeah,” Richie said again. He nodded quickly. “Yeah, I will.”  
  
He wouldn’t. Eddie looked like he knew it.  
  
“Okay,” Eddie repeated. He took a step back, then another, and the distance was so _different_. It had been too far, just minutes ago, and now it wasn’t nearly far enough. “I’m pretty sure Bev and Stan are just sitting in the driveway – want me to send them in?”  
  
“No,” Richie shook his head. “I have to…” he waved an arm uselessly over the mountain of clothes on his bed. He wasn’t sure what he had to do with them, really. Bury himself under them until he suffocated. Wallow in his own self-loathing and clean laundry. Set the whole bed on fire. He could see the sleeve of the flannel shirt he’d been wearing That Night – setting the bed on fire might be his only option.  
  
“I see that,” Eddie laughed shakily. Richie hated the sound of it. “I’ll get out of your way. Just…” he trailed off. Looked at Richie, and in that moment Richie could see every bit of hopeless, miserable guilt and anger and fucking sadness simmering in Eddie.  
  
“Have a good summer, Rich.”  
  
“Yeah,” Richie nodded. “You too, Eddie.”  
  
Two years ago, fresh off the vitriol and fury of seeing Eddie for the first time since Eddie had broken his fucking heart, Richie had wished desperately that one day Eddie would feel just as devastated and abandoned and hurt as Richie had then. That Eddie would know what it felt like, would know what it meant to _do that_ to someone. He’d even wished it could be him to do it – thought that somehow he’d feel _better_ , that he’d feel so fucking _good_ about Eddie finally getting the karma he deserved.  
  
Richie had gotten his wish. And it felt _horrible_.  
  
  


* * *

_I will softly pull away,  
_ _in this broken beautiful mess I've made.  
_ _And in the dead and quiet I will slowly fade._

_  
(I’ll wreck this if I have to)_

* * *

  
There is a playlist for  _Winterbreak_  - if you'd like to listen to the whole thing all at once, you can find it [here](https://open.spotify.com/user/1239648869/playlist/3pS5XQu7CkeCfp33mD5zeE?si=4ejxt-_tQ9qTSHiu177vrw). If you'd like to listen chapter by chapter, the chapter 5 playlist is [here](https://open.spotify.com/user/1239648869/playlist/4z8sJMkObjQv1gqa41BxwL?si=HkfZN9gmTCSec_WoNOFe5Q). I'm mostly a lurker on tumblr these days, but if you'd like to pick my brain about my very firm and utterly baseless headcanons about Richie Tozier you can find me [here](http://thegloryof.tumblr.com/). 


	6. Winter Break, Senior Year

**Chapter 6 – Winter Break, Senior Year**  
_Mistakes We Knew We Were Making – Straylight Run_

* * *

  
  
Richie had gotten as far as New York City before he realized he’d just made the biggest mistake of his entire fucking life.  
  
He laid on his new bed in his empty apartment after a perfunctory meet the roommates and stared blindly at the suitcase sitting untouched by the bedroom door. Bev and Stan had come back, Ben in tow, to find Richie sitting listlessly on the edge of his bed, Bev’s requested pile of clothing next to him and the rest of it all thrown haphazardly on the floor. None of them had asked what happened – they seemed to know enough just by realizing Eddie wasn’t still there – and Richie wasn’t inclined to share. He let Bev somehow fit all his things in his suitcase while Stan fussed over her shoulder. Looking at his suitcase, six hours and hundreds of miles later, he didn’t remember what they’d packed.  
  
He called Stan.  
  
Well, first he called Bill. Asked if Bill had seen Eddie yet that day, told Bill to go stop by the Kaspbrak’s house when he said he hadn’t. Eddie would never admit it, he’d never be the one to go to Bill first, but if he felt half as shitty as Richie did just then it would be nice for him to have someone there. So first he called Bill, and then he called Stan.  
  
He told Stan everything. He started from the beginning – even the obvious bits that Stan already knew, but Richie had never actually said out loud. He told Stan that he was in love with Eddie, that he’d loved Eddie for as far back as he remembered, that he couldn’t even actually remember when he’d realized it, just that he _knew_. He told Stan about the party at Bill’s house and what happened after, about getting everything he ever wanted and watching it all fall apart the next morning. Stan stayed quiet as Richie talked his way through coming home to Stan’s warning about Eddie’s boyfriend, through the summer that followed, the two years after that.  
  
“I did something stupid,” he’d sighed, finally. “Something really fucking stupid.”  
  
“I told you not to,” Stan said sadly. If he’d been there, Richie would have hugged him for it. It didn’t matter what he said – he sounded as wrecked as Richie felt, as devastated and upset about what Richie had been through. “You should’ve told me.”  
  
He should’ve. It would’ve been nice to have someone else with him in this, and Stan had always been in Richie’s corner, would always have Richie’s back. But telling Stan would’ve drawn a line, would’ve put a crack down the middle of their group of friends, and Richie would suffer a thousand years of silence before he ever did anything to rip his friends apart.  
  
So instead he’d hung up. Spent a minute calculating how long the call was and what that long-distance charge was probably going to be, preemptively left a note taped next to the phone promising his roommates he would pay for it. Dragged himself back to his empty bedroom and laid on his unmade bed and wondered if there was any way possible to recover from the biggest fucking mistake of his stupid, wasted life.  
  
There wasn’t. Not right away, anyway. He couldn’t _call_ Eddie, how the fuck do you say over a long distance phone call “hey man, turns out I’m a fucking idiot and I’d rather tear our world apart than live another day without you, see you in six months.” It wasn’t like the things Richie had said were untrue – they lived in different states, pretty soon they’d be on different _coasts_. Even if Richie didn’t get into grad school (he would) he was moving to California – he had to. Because while the rest of Richie’s life felt like it was crumbling to pieces, it turned out his internship was fucking _amazing_.  
  
Z100 was _incredible_ , and Elvis Duran was a goddamn _legend_ , and the whole experience was _life changing_. And at the end of it when Richie had sat down for a last chat with his team, his boss told him that he had a future in radio if he wanted it, a future at Z100, if he was interested. But Elvis – Elvis _fucking_ Duran, had waved her away and said that Richie had _more than that_. Had handed Richie a business card, made him promise to get in touch with an old friend of Elvis’ when he was looking for plans after school, and left him sitting in the meeting room holding onto the contact info for the casting director at MTV. Richie was going to California, Richie was going to follow his fucking dreams, goddammit, even if it cost him everything.  
  
But first he would try. He would try, one more time. For Eddie. For himself.  
  
Back at school, his last first semester of undergrad, Richie took a comedy writing class. He hosted his own radio show on the college network four nights a week, a mix of music and talk show that had somehow gained more of a following than any time slot the station had ever tracked before. He always picked his music out in advance, usually liked to theme his nights whenever he could, but the talk show part had always been off the cuff. Richie was _good_ at off the cuff humor, had gotten better at it as he’d grown up, as he’d learned the difference between talking for entertainment and talking just to hear the sound of his own voice.  
  
“Don’t think of it as writing a script,” his professor had told him, when Richie had admitted to her that he couldn’t wrap his head around the idea of pre-writing his own material. “You don’t want it to sound planned, there’s nothing natural about that. Think about it like you’re talking to someone – tell someone else what you’re planning to talk about on tonight’s show. Who’s your favorite person to riff with?”  
  
So he did. He had one-sided conversations with the voice in his head that was so unmistakably Eddie. Started writing them down, eventually. Wrote him comedy sketches and stand-up routines and conversation points for his show. But once he started, once it started becoming second nature, like thinking out loud, Richie found he had a hard time _stopping_. He’d write to Eddie about a resurfaced memory from when they were thirteen and he’d had his first wet dream about Eddie. He’d write about the time he was hooking up with a girl named Stephanie from his Intro to Film class sophomore year and accidentally called her Spaghetti, then laughed so hard he cried and she’d left him alone in his bed. But he also wrote about the night he came home for summer break freshman year and Stan was waiting for him on his porch. About the dim, hazy memory Richie had of their first kiss, and how much he wished he didn’t remember it at all. He’d accidentally handed in an eight-page sketch about watching Eddie at the Hanlon’s farm, one afternoon when they were nineteen and not speaking to each other, and plotting all the different ways he could kill Eddie and make it look like a freak accident. It wasn’t even slightly related to the assignment, but apparently it had been ‘scathingly funny and raw and honest’ enough to earn him an A anyway.  
  
Richie wrote to Eddie, and about Eddie, and talked to the Eddie in his head, and performed to the Eddie in his skits…but he didn’t call. He thought he only had one chance to get it right – that it was his turn to go out on a limb and apologize, to beg for Eddie’s forgiveness and a second chance – third? thousandth? – to fix this broken thing between them. He’d thought about driving down to New York, once or twice. Bill invited him to spend a long weekend in Poughkeepsie – it would’ve been easy to day trip down to the city from there, to bang down Eddie’s door and make some big grand gesture, but that didn’t…it just didn’t feel right.  
  
And when Mike reported that Eddie was coming home for Christmas – they all were, by some miracle – Richie knew he’d been right to wait. That they were going to come full circle – winter break in Derry, three years too late but certainly better than never. So Richie wrote. And planned. And waited.  
  
  
  
  
  
Richie pulled into his parents’ driveway just after eight and cut the engine with a sigh. The drive had been long – longer than it usually was, longer than he would’ve liked, and made to feel even _longer_ because of what was waiting for him in Derry. He had five short weeks at home before his last semester ever back at Geneseo, and while the world still seemed too huge, too enthralling to squeeze into this insignificant little town, he was happy to be back in Derry again.  
  
Well. _Happy_ wasn’t the word, really. Maybe hopeful. He was _hopeful_ , back here in Derry again, and it was a strange emotion to attach to his tiny corner of the world.  
  
Richie grabbed his backpack off the passenger’s seat and kicked his door open, unfolding out of the car he’d been in for the better part of fourteen hours. He’d left Geneseo stupid early that morning – too anxious and fidgety to fall back asleep after his roommate’s cat woke him – and paid for it with a series of karmic car accidents, construction, and poor-weather driving. Freshly fallen snow seeped through the worn-out soles of his slip-on Vans as he hurried around to his trunk to grab two stuffed duffle bags, but at least then he wouldn’t have to unpack in the morning.  
  
There was nobody sitting on the top step of his front porch, or waiting inside behind the large festive wreath on the front door. His mom’s company Christmas party was that night, and while Maggie had offered to skip it entirely Richie swore he wouldn’t mind. He didn’t – he had other plans anyway.  
  
Half an hour later he was showered and dressed, standing in front of the floor length mirror in the foyer studying himself with a contemplative frown. He’d spent more time than he’d ever admit picking out an outfit yesterday – he wanted to look _good_ , but not like he was trying too hard. _Nice_ , but still casual. Jeans that didn’t have holes in them – intentional or otherwise – and were tailored but not like, _tight_. An oversized cardigan he’d bought at a thrift store in Ithaca on a road trip last spring that was clearly a castoff from the wardrobe of an 80s family sitcom. A long sleeve t-shirt in a dark purple color that a guy had once told him made his eyes look _fathomless_ , whatever the fuck that meant.  
  
He looked...he looked...it didn’t fucking matter, really, did it? Not if he kept procrastinating, not if he never got off his ass and left his house. Richie shoved his feet into a pair of his dad’s all-weather boots, pulled on a coat, and cut out the back door and into his dark backyard.  
  
Once upon a time there had been a well-worn path – a break in the fence that let him cut through his neighbor’s yard, two blocks down the street, the weird alley between the Newby’s house and the Ripsom’s house, another block to the right. It may have been years since Richie walked through the dark streets, but he still knew them by heart. Knew when to turn and duck under the fence, when to cross the street to avoid the King’s dog. He knew which tree to climb, if he was going that route, and which window to knock on, how to shimmy the distance from tree branch to window ledge in a way that didn’t end up with him head-first on the floor. Had done it all hundreds of times before – tried not to think about the fact that, if he fucked it up, he might never get to do any of it again.  
  
He only had one chance, he figured, so he might as well do it right. Which left Richie Tozier standing on Eddie and Sonia Kaspbrak’s front porch at 8:56 on a frigid Saturday night, both hands shoved in his pockets and his face numb from the cold, waiting for someone to answer the door.  
  
“It’s you,” Sonia sighed, opening the door just enough to take a good, long look at Richie. She sounded so honestly, genuinely disappointed that Richie almost laughed. “Here I thought we were done with you.”  
  
“I’m like a bedbug,” Richie said cheerfully, “I crawl up where you least want me and make myself nearly impossible to get rid of. Is Eddie home?”  
  
“He is,” Sonia admitted. She didn’t look amused – Richie didn’t mind. It was taking some of the edge off, this blatant dislike. Infused a little more conviction in him, reminded him that he was _fighting_ for this, for _Eddie_.  
  
“Can I go up and talk to him?”  
  
Sonia pursed her lips. “He might be asleep.”  
  
“Eddie hates sleeping with the lights on,” he said matter-of-factly, nodding up to where Eddie’s bedroom window had been clearly visible from the sidewalk. “It gives him a headache.”  
  
“He probably doesn’t want to talk to see you,” Sonia tried. She said it pointedly, a statement of the obvious instead of a half-hearted effort to make him leave. She thought it would hurt – like Richie hadn’t been thinking the exact same thing to himself, every day for _months_. He was _immune_ by now, Sonia Kaspbrak couldn’t touch him.  
  
“He probably doesn’t,” Richie agreed, “But if it’s all the same I’d rather let _him_ make that decision, and not – ”  
  
“Richie?”  
  
Eddie stood halfway down the stairs just inside the house, staring at Richie over his mother’s shoulder, and Richie could have sworn his heart skipped a beat. Eddie looked rumpled and soft, flannel pajama pants and bare feet and a crew neck sweatshirt that looked vaguely familiar.  
  
“Hey,” Richie said cautiously, all the bravado from just seconds before suddenly gone. “Is this a bad time?”  
  
Eddie glanced down at his pajamas, and Richie could’ve sworn his cheeks went a little pink. It was hard to tell, really, especially with the way Sonia’s face was going an interesting shade of purple. She looked like she was gearing up for a fight, even though she so clearly knew she’d already lost – her grip on the door went tight, and Richie stepped forward and put one hand very carefully on it before she could slam the whole thing in his face.  
  
“No,” Eddie said quickly, like he could see his mother’s mounting refusal too. “No, not at all. Come in, it’s freezing out, come on.”  
  
Richie fucking _beamed_ at Sonia, belligerent and triumphant and entirely full of false confidence, but it seemed to work anyway – she kept her sour mouth shut as she took a step back and pulled the door open the rest of the way. Richie didn’t hesitate, he stepped inside and beelined straight for the staircase before she could change her mind. Eddie seemed to agree with him – he was up the full flight before Richie had even gotten his coat and shoes off. Eddie stood on the landing and waited as Richie bounded up after him, ushered them both down the hall into Eddie’s room and closed the door firmly behind them.  
  
It was the first time Richie had been in Eddie’s room in three years. Not much had changed, honestly – the pictures were the same, the bed still neatly made with the same comforter, too many half-empty glasses of water littering every flat surface. There was a new bookshelf in one corner, a Wagner College pennant on the wall over Eddie’s desk, clothes Richie didn’t recognize piled on an empty chair. He was surprised how sad it made him – sad and small, being back in Eddie’s room after all that time had passed.  
  
When he looked over at Eddie he found Eddie still standing by the closed door, watching Richie with a cautiously curious expression on his face. He didn’t look away when Richie caught him staring – Richie was glad for it, it gave him the opportunity to unabashedly stare back.  
  
Eddie looked different, again – no more so than Richie himself, probably. Just a little bit older, a sharpness to his jaw that hadn’t been there before, a soft curl to his hair that meant it was clean of any product, a set to his shoulders that spoke of someone who carried himself tall. Like Eddie had grown into himself, a little bit more, in the last six months. Richie followed the firm line of Eddie’s square shoulders, the pull of the sweatshirt where it had to stretch to fit Eddie, even though the sleeves were long enough that his hands were hooked into the cuffs. One cuff had a hole in the hem – Richie watched as Eddie absentmindedly worked his thumb through the heather gray fabric, and then looked again at the faded blue logo emblazoned across the chest.  
  
“That’s mine,” he said dumbly, nodding at Eddie.  
  
Eddie raised an eyebrow.  
  
It _was_ Richie’s sweatshirt though, he was sure of it. It was the gray SUNY Geneseo sweatshirt his parents had bought him during orientation – he’d worn the hell out of it for all of his freshman year, first ironically and then because it was too damn comfortable not to. He’d ripped the thumbhole into the left cuff while worrying at it during his Art History midterm sophomore year fall semester, had brought it home to see if his mom or Beverly could fix it.  
  
“Not anymore it isn’t,” Eddie shrugged, shoulders flexing under the heavy cotton. “You left it at Bev’s.”  
  
“It looks better on you anyway,” Richie said truthfully.  
  
Eddie didn’t say anything. Richie didn’t really expect him to. Eddie had already done more than Richie deserved, just by letting him in the door – Richie didn’t expect to be humored, not that easily. He was surprised Eddie had even let it go that far without demanding an explanation – he’d never exactly been known for his patience, especially not with Richie.  
  
“I came here to apologize to you,” Richie said bluntly.  
  
It wasn’t quite the bombshell he thought it was going to be. Eddie just looked at him, that steady, level stare of his that Richie had seen slowly emerging over the last few years. Younger Eddie was easier to rile, easier to shock and ignite and infuriate. But this Eddie just shifted his weight and watched Richie calmly, clearly waiting for more.  
  
“I’m sorry I didn’t call you this summer,” he elaborated. “I wanted to. I thought about you every day – every fucking day in that big, stupid city, I walked around and thought about you. Wondered where you would’ve taken me to get pizza, wondered if you’d ever sat on that bench, if you liked thrift stores and if you knew any good ones. I spent half the summer talking to you, I just never actually managed to pick up the phone and do it.”  
  
“Why not?” Eddie asked evenly. It was an odd reversal of their last conversation, the one where Eddie had been so frazzled and apologetic and rambling, and Richie had been so numb and composed.  
  
“Because I didn’t know what to say to you.” Richie ducked his head and ran a hand through his hair, shifted his weight slightly before looking back up at Eddie.  
  
Eddie’s expression hadn’t changed – he stood still with his arms loosely folded over his chest, his stance casual but his shoulders tense. He didn’t say anything.  
  
“I got to New York and realized what a colossal fucking idiot I was – ” Eddie snorted, Richie flashed him a tiny smile – “and what the fuck was I supposed to say after that? Hey, sorry I just fucked up massively, I take it all back, I’d set this whole fucking town on fire for the chance to have one more night with you. Hope you haven’t decided to hate me forever, XOXO love ya, Eds.”  
  
He was on a little bit of a roll – a rambling rant that he wasn’t quite sure when to wrap up, honestly, but he cut himself off before he could go any further as Eddie made a noise Richie had _never_ heard before. Some tragic hybrid of a gasp and a sob that Eddie tried to choke down to be nearly silent, a terrible, wounded, heart-breaking breath of noise that Richie _never wanted to hear again for the rest of his damned life_.  
  
He flailed a little helplessly, made a few wordless, half-motions towards Eddie until Eddie dismissed him with a wave of his hand, shaking his head and taking a deep, stabilizing breath.  
  
“ _What_?” Richie finally asked, a little bit frantic and panicky, practically jumping forward, totally derailed. “Are you – what’s wrong?”  
  
“You haven’t…” Eddie shook his head, closed his eyes, swayed forward slightly before righting himself with a steadying breath. “I always figured that I could gauge how much you still hated me by what you called me. Nothing, at first. Eddie, or Kaspbrak sometimes, after a while. But never – I told myself I’d know you’d really forgiven me when you called me Eds, but I didn’t think you ever would. I never thought I’d be so happy to hear that stupid name in my _life_.”  
  
“You love that stupid name,” Richie said reflexively – a little breathless, a little choked up.  
  
“I love _you_ , dumbass,” Eddie shot back.  
  
Richie thought he might explode.  
  
“Even though I’m a massive fucking idiot?” he pressed.  
  
“Probably because you’re a massive fucking idiot,” Eddie sighed. “It’s _annoyingly_ charming, I can’t stand it.”  
  
“Literally nobody else in the world thinks I’m charming,” Richie laughed, mostly in disbelief. “You must really like me.”  
  
He wanted to reach out and put his hands on Eddie – he didn’t care where, or how, just wanted to erase the distance between them. But it was a distance that was ever-shrinking – they were moving toward each other with every passing second, shifting almost unnoticeably as they drifted closer and closer together. They’d always gravitated toward each other, some cosmic, magnetic pull that made them Richie-and-Eddie. Richie let himself fall into it, let himself be pulled another step closer.  
  
“I do,” Eddie said simply.  
  
“I love you so fucking much,” Richie said back. “Like, so fucking much, you have no idea, and I swear to God, Eds, I’m going to spend every day proving it to you. Every day, to make up for all the days we fucked it up, and then a hundred times over, until you’re sick of me.”  
  
“Never going to happen,” Eddie breathed, looking up at Richie. Eddie _had_ grown since Richie last saw him, but Richie still had a good five inches on him.  
  
“I love you,” Richie said again. He’d say it a thousand times more, in actions and words and silly declarations and dramatic gestures and quiet attentions, over and over until Eddie believed him.  
  
But Eddie didn’t need any more convincing. Because Eddie still loved him, no matter what else happened Eddie still fucking loved him, and that was more than Richie ever thought he’d get. Richie took that last step forward and Eddie met him halfway, grabbed Richie’s cardigan as Richie cupped Eddie’s face between his hands and held him still so Richie could press their lips together. Eddie surged up, surged into him, pulled Richie down to meet him so that Eddie could kiss him breathless, kiss him senseless.  
  
They broke apart slowly, lingering together as they kissed once, twice, a quick and gentle catch of lips against lips. Richie didn’t want to let go – Eddie didn’t seem to want to either. He dropped his hands from where they were clutching the collar of Richie’s cardigan, but only to slip them down to Richie’s waist, tucking beneath the sweater to wrap loosely around his ribs. Richie was glad for it, glad for the anchoring weight of Eddie in front of him. He moved his own hands from Eddie’s jaw, but only just to settle his arms around Eddie’s neck instead. And when Eddie tipped forward, buried his face into the crook of Richie’s throat, Richie used that leverage to pull them flush against each other, to press his face into Eddie’s soft hair and hug him close.  
  
God, he’d missed this. Richie had never noticed just how tactile he and Eddie were with each other until it stopped. It had always been a constant in their friendship – arms slung over shoulders, half-hearted shoves, piggyback rides and constantly poking at each other and sharing chairs and always being squished together on the same couch and...they were just always touching each other. And he missed it, God he’d missed it so much. He slid one hand into Eddie’s hair, just to feel it, just because he could, and trailed the other lightly over the line of Eddie’s spine.  
  
“You’re still an idiot,” Eddie said quietly, breaking the long silence between them.  
  
“I know,” Richie snorted.  
  
“So am I, though.” Eddie lifted his head, leaned back just enough to be able to look up at Richie without disconnecting them entirely. “You do know that, right?”  
  
“That you’re an idiot? I’ve known you since you were eight,” Richie teased. “I think I’ve figured that out by now.”  
  
“No,” Eddie shook his head. “I mean, obviously, but like...about this. This isn’t a case of you being a stubborn ass and therefore it’s all your fault that everything went to shit. We both fucked up, a _lot_ , and you had every right and every reason to say no to me last summer.”  
  
“Yeah, but –”  
  
Eddie glared at him, and Richie felt a wave of fondness that nearly bowled him over. When was the last time Eddie had looked at him like that, with tender exasperation and reluctant amusement and a promise of swift retribution if Richie didn’t shut his mouth immediately?  
  
“We both fucked up,” Eddie repeated firmly. “And it’s probably going to take time for both of us to really, actually fix it.”  
  
“I know,” Richie agreed, sobering slightly. He dropped his arms from Eddie’s shoulders, let them settle loosely around Eddie’s waist instead. “We’re going to have to have some really gross and emotional conversations like mature adults, aren’t we?”  
  
“Probably.” Eddie wrinkled his nose in distaste, Richie wanted to kiss it. Then he remembered that he _could_ – he leaned forward to plant a quick kiss to Eddie’s brow, right over the furrowed lines, and delighted in the way Eddie’s cheeks turned pink in response.

“You weren’t wrong to think this is a bad idea” Eddie added, a moment later. “I’m worried about what happens if we fuck this up too. With everybody else. I don’t think...we’re both pretty good at burning bridges, when we want to.”  
  
“And I’m still going to California,” Richie said. “For sure, even if I don’t get into UCLA, it’s the best place to try to get a job, or an internship, something to get into the industry.”  
  
Eddie squirmed slightly in his arms, a small, subtle motion that Richie wouldn’t have noticed if he hadn’t felt it. Eddie squirmed, an odd, almost guilty look on his face, and looked anywhere but at Richie’s curious expression.  
  
“Confession,” he said finally, after a slow, deliberate breath. “I may have...done something potentially stupid? Or at least, at the time it felt really stupid. All my friends at school told me it was, that’s for fucking sure.”  
  
Richie raised an eyebrow. Eddie took another deep breath before he finally met Richie’s eye again.  
  
“I submitted all my grad school apps at the end of the semester, and a few directly to residency programs. Only two of them were for schools in New York – everything else I applied to is out in California.”  
  
“You _what_?” Richie’s voice had an oddly strangled quality to it, hoarse and disbelieving. “But we weren’t even…”  
  
“I know,” Eddie said quickly, his cheeks pink again. “I know, it was really fucking stupid, but I just...I don’t know, I thought if we were in the same place for a few years maybe it would give me more time to try to convince you we were worth it.”  
  
“ _You_ are worth it,” Richie said hoarsely. He tightened his arms around Eddie’s waist, pulled him close again so Richie could dip down and capture Eddie’s lips in another searing kiss. “I’m so sorry I ever let you think you weren’t.”  
  
“I’m sorry I let you think I regretted kissing you,” Eddie said back. “Does that make us even?”  
  
Richie laughed, even though he felt suspiciously like crying and wasn’t quite sure why. Fuck, he had this. He had _Eddie_ , this was _real_ , and Eddie was going to come to California with him and they were going to do this right and make it work and _fuck_.  
  
“I love you,” he said, and he was pretty sure there actually _were_ tears in his eyes now, what the fuck. “I really, really fucking love you.”  
  
“I know,” Eddie said back, and Richie knew the shit-eating grin on Eddie’s face was because he’d been waiting his entire life to use that reference, and Richie knew that because Eddie was _his_ , Eddie was the love of his fucking life and the number one person Richie would do anything for and Richie knew Eddie better than Richie knew himself, and Richie loved Eddie and Eddie loved _him_.  
  
“C’mon, Princess,” he laughed. “Let’s – ”  
  
“Eddie!” Sonia’s shrill voice sounded like she was just on the other side of Eddie’s door, sudden and sharp and way too loud. “It’s getting late, Eddie-bear, you should probably go to bed soon.”  
  
“Ma I’m – ”  
  
Richie pressed a quick, silencing kiss to Eddie’s lips and _oh_ , wouldn’t that be a fun way to shut him up? Oh, the possibilities were _endless_ , and Richie had the whole _world_ open to him. Starting right now.  
  
“I’ll go,” he said quietly in Eddie’s ear. “Come with me.”  
  
He pulled back and jerked his head toward the window, the same window they had both climbed in and out of countless times before. And _that_ fucking smile, blooming across Eddie’s face in wicked delight and conspiracy and agreement, that right there was why.  
  
“Richie was just leaving,” Eddie said loudly. He rose up on his toes to press one last kiss to Richie’s cheek before finally, reluctantly, pulling away completely. He crossed the room and opened his bedroom door, where sure enough Sonia Kaspbrak stood in the hall, already glaring daggers at Richie. He grinned back at her, shoved down a few truly heinous thoughts about how impressed he was that Sonia had managed to drag her considerable bulk all the way up here just to kick him out, and turned instead to smile softly at Eddie.  
  
“I haven’t talked to anyone yet, but I’m assuming we’re going to the diner tomorrow,” he said. “Same time as always?”  
  
“Probably,” Eddie shrugged, seemingly indifferent, but it was a good thing he had his back to his mom – the smile on his face still hadn’t faded, and it wasn’t fooling anyone. “See you there.”  
  
“C’mon, Mrs. K.,” Richie said cheerfully, pulling himself away from that _fucking_ smile and heading toward the door. “Better lock me out, who knows what kind of riffraff lives in this neighborhood these days. You _do_ keep your door locked at night, don’t you?”  
  
“The better to keep you out,” she sighed. It was truly a shame, Richie thought, pounding down the steps and yelling one last goodbye up to Eddie, that she had no idea how fucking funny she actually was.  
  
He made a big show of waving at Sonia, bouncing down the steps, and heading off in the direction of their shortcut before doubling back around to the other side of the house. It didn’t take too long before Eddie’s window slid open, a pair of boots appearing over the sill and landing on the roof below with barely a thump.  
  
“Why, fancy seeing you here, Mr. Kaspbrak,” Richie said slyly, steadying Eddie carefully as he dropped the last little distance to the snow-covered ground.  
  
“You didn’t have to wait,” Eddie whispered, shoving his hands into his coat pockets and pulling out gloves. “Shit, it’s freezing. C’mere.”  
  
Richie went willingly, took his bare hands from his own pockets and held them out as Eddie beckoned forcefully. Eddie put his gloves on quickly before he took Richie’s hands in his own, pressing them together and rubbing the frozen skin briskly between his warm woolen gloves.  
  
“Of course I waited,” Richie scoffed, watching Eddie fondly. “Had to make sure you didn’t change your mind.”  
  
Eddie looked up and caught Richie’s eye, frowning slightly.  
  
“I didn’t,” he said firmly.  
  
“Good,” Richie said back. “Took us long enough to get here, gotta keep you for as long as I can.”  
  
Eddie curled his gloved fingers around Richie’s hands and squeezed, still looking Richie dead in the eye. But Richie had been joking, mostly, he didn’t _really_ think Eddie was going to change his mind. Not that quickly, anyway. And it really was fucking _freezing_ out there, they definitely didn’t need to stand outside any longer than necessary.  
  
“Come on,” he said, gently pulling his hands free from Eddie’s before taking just one of them in one of his, tugging Eddie slightly in the direction of Richie’s house. “Let’s go home, you can tell me all about how you’re never going to leave me ever again when we’re back in my nice warm bed.”  
  
“Presumptuous of you,” Eddie teased, “assuming I’m that easy, that you can just get me in your bed like that.”  
  
“You’ve been sleeping in my bed for _years_ , Eds, too late to start being coy about it now,” Richie said slyly. He didn’t miss the way Eddie’s grip on his hand tightened slightly at the nickname, a quick squeeze that, more than anything else, reminded Richie that this was fucking _real_. That it was actually _happening_.  
  
“You’re never going to yell at me for it again, are you?” he mused aloud, grinning to himself. “You’ve admitted it, you like Eds, I’m going to have to come up with a whole new way to piss you off now.”  
  
“Pretty sure you mastered that skill like, a decade ago,” Eddie sighed. He nudged Richie’s shoulder with his own, Richie nudged back, they settled with their arms pressed together from shoulder to elbow, fingers still tangled between them. “And I’m pretty sure I’m immune by now.”  
  
“Whatever you say, Spaghetti Man,” Richie sang back.  
  
“I didn’t miss that one at _all_ ,” Eddie snapped, and Richie laughed.  
  
“I’ve got a whole arsenal full of them,” he said happily. “So many options, you have no idea, the world is limitless.”  
  
“Truly, I can’t wait,” Eddie replied drily.  
  
He ducked under the fence that lead into the weird alleyway between streets, let go of Richie’s hand long enough for Richie to do the same. Unshoveled, unplowed, the snow drifts in the alley came up to their knees in some spots and barely hit their ankles in others, but the two boys moved through the dark with deft, well-practiced steps that hadn’t faded in the years it had been since they’d last used the shortcut. Richie waited until they were back on the street, drifting toward the middle of the road to avoid having to walk through the slushy snow piles against the curbs, before he reached for Eddie’s hand again.  
  
But almost as soon as he had it, Eddie pulled him to a stop. Richie glanced around at him, not entirely sure _why_ , until he caught sight of the house on their left. It was familiar in more than just the periphery of Richie’s small universe – no, that house was a landmark. This _spot_ was a landmark – this, right here, stretch of road.  
  
Eddie stood still on the center of the double yellow line as Richie swung around to face him, planting himself toe-to-toe with Eddie. They balanced on the precarious line, face to face with one hand still joined between them, each breath visible in the frigid air.  
  
Richie stared at Eddie, and Eddie stared back, and for a moment Richie wondered what he would do if he could go back and do it all again. Wondered if, standing in this exact spot, almost three years ago, staring at this very boy, he would have done something different. Would he still have taken that last step forward and kissed his best friend, even if he knew the cost?  
  
But then again, it hadn’t been Richie that had taken that last step forward – not back then, and not now either. It was Eddie that stepped forward and wrapped his free hand around the back of Richie’s neck, that tugged him down and pressed himself forward until they were flush up against each other. Richie untangled their hands and wrapped both his arms around Eddie’s ribs, held him steady as Eddie rose up on his toes and brought their lips together. Searing heat and freezing cold and the wet, breathless, unbelievable press of lips against lips, and Richie thought maybe he could cry. He could, but he wouldn’t, not if it meant Eddie would stop kissing him. He tightened his arms around Eddie and kissed him back just as fiercely, just as desperately, and knew he’d do anything, _anything_ , to make sure that Eddie Kaspbrak _never_ stopped kissing him.  
  
“I love you,” Richie whispered, breaking the kiss only when the need to breathe became dire. “So fucking much.”  
  
“I love you too,” Eddie breathed back. He laughed, and it sounded a little bit like a sob, and leaned back in for another quick, urgent kiss before falling back onto his heels and looking up at Richie with a sly grin. “Take me home, I’ll show you how much.”  
  
And Richie fucking _loved him_. They were a mess, they were going to take work. There were still wounds to heal, still obstacles to overcome, still words to say and words that couldn’t be unsaid, but _fuck_. Richie loved him. Richie _loved_ Eddie, and everything else just paled in comparison to that. Richie loved him. They’d figure out the rest.  
  
  
  
  
  
Richie woke up to the sound of his bedroom door slamming open and, honestly, he should’ve seen that coming. Should’ve known from the moment he got home last night that his ridiculous, insane, wonderful friends weren’t going to wait too long for him to get his shit together. He should’ve _known_ , should’ve thought about it in advance, should’ve –  
  
“Locked the fucking door, _fuck_ ,” Eddie snapped, burying his face into the bare skin of Richie’s shoulder. He tightened the arm he had draped over Richie’s hips, pulling himself further into Richie’s side like he was pulling a blanket over his head, like maybe if he pretended they were alone then everybody else would just magically disappear.  
  
“Oh my _god_.”  
  
“ _Seriously??_ ”  
  
“Holy shit, _finally_.”  
  
Richie grinned blindly up at Stan, Bill, and Beverly, a shit-eating smirk of a grin that he honestly felt all the way down to his _toes_. Eddie growled something indiscernible behind him.  
  
“You all know better than to wake a sleeping Eddiekins,” Richie said solemnly. “Hope you’re ready to buy him breakfast now.”  
  
“Stan, I don’t think you’re Richie’s favorite anymore.” Bill snickered.  
  
“Stan was never Richie’s favorite, idiots,” Eddie growled back. “But if you leave _right now_ I’ll consider joint custody.”  
  
And god, Richie could kiss him. And he _could_ , he fucking _could_ kiss Eddie – he squirmed under Eddie’s arm until Eddie let up enough that Richie could turn over, and even grouchy, half-asleep Eddie with his hair going every which way and his eyes squinted shut was still the best thing Richie had ever fucking seen.  
  
“He’s lying, you’ll always be my favorite, Stanley,” Richie teased. Eddie opened his eyes just a crack, two angry slits of disbelief. Richie _loved him_. “But I’m about to do some really gross shit to Eddie, so you guys should probably leave.”  
  
“I hate you both,” Stan groused half-heartedly, but it already sounded further away, heavy footsteps and the sharp snap of the door closing behind them.  
  
Richie didn’t care. He was busy staring at Eddie, reveling in the heavy, proprietary arm Eddie had promptly repositioned on Richie’s hips, at the warm, comfortingly familiar scent, at the reminder that here, in the early light of morning, this was still real. Last night had been _real_.  
  
Eddie blinked slowly, once, twice, stared sleepily up at Richie. He didn’t smile – Eddie _hated_ mornings, he wasn’t going to smile until he was good and ready – but there was nothing dangerous in his expression. Not this time. But still.  
  
“Gonna kick me out of my own bed again?” Richie teased, only half-joking.  
  
Eddie glared at him.  
  
“Only,” he said crossly, “if you don’t come over here and kiss me right now.”  
  
And Richie was only too happy to slide forward and do just that, cupping a hand under Eddie’s jaw and pressing their lips together in a simple, utterly perfect kiss. Eddie hummed contentedly into it, whined just slightly when Richie gently pulled away.  
  
“Best mistake I ever made,” Eddie murmured. His eyes immediately flew open, like even he couldn’t believe what he just said, but Richie practically _howled_. He buried his face in his pillow and laughed so hard he almost choked on it, and even though Eddie huffed and draped himself over Richie like a disgruntled cat, Richie knew they were okay. They’d be _okay_.  
  
“I love you,” he laughed, twisting around to pull Eddie down on top of him, grinning up at Eddie bright as the goddamn sun.  
  
“I love you too,” Eddie grumbled back, the hint of a smile poking at the edges of his lips. “Think we have time to get in any of that gross shit before the rest of them demand breakfast?”  
  
Richie pulled Eddie down, pulled him into a searing, open-mouthed kiss even though they were both still laughing and half-asleep and messy and stupid, and fuck it. Breakfast could wait.

 

* * *

  
_So we bottled and shelved all our regrets,  
_ _let them ferment and came back to our senses.  
_ _Drove back home, slept a few days,  
_ _woke up and laughed at how stupid we used to be…  
  
_

* * *

  
There is a playlist for  _Winterbreak_  - if you'd like to listen to the whole thing all at once, you can find it [here](https://open.spotify.com/user/1239648869/playlist/3pS5XQu7CkeCfp33mD5zeE?si=4ejxt-_tQ9qTSHiu177vrw). If you'd like to listen chapter by chapter, the chapter 6 playlist is [here](https://open.spotify.com/user/1239648869/playlist/7ljfnAPpNYEjthi9ceGIfJ?si=PZfZdBc-RLyd03hoMm8OSw). I'm mostly a lurker on tumblr these days, but if you'd like to pick my brain about my very firm and utterly baseless headcanons about Richie Tozier you can find me [here](http://thegloryof.tumblr.com/).  _  
_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A quick shout-out to my wonderful friends for listening to me complain about this story for an entire year and then still being willing to read it all in the end. We should all be so lucky to have such amazing humans in our lives. And to you - thank you so much for reading, I hope you enjoyed the ride!


End file.
